You make excellent points Fei, especially about the conditional text. Another thing: I didn't mention that I often review the content to see if text can be arranged in a different way, or different order, to achieve the results needed (without, of course, compromising readability or usability). I find that doing these projects take a combination of skills and approaches...and some compromises unless you've got unlimited time or an unlimited budget (and someday I'll get a client with those...maybe...smile!).
Blessings Jerilynne On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 8:04 AM, Fei Min Lorente <FeiMin.Lorente at onsemi.com>wrote: > Hi Joel: > > I have an incomplete answer, but I'd like to get the ball rolling. I'm > still using FrameMaker 7.2, so that's one of my knowledge limitations. > I'm counting on others to fill in the gaps. > > (a) I wouldn't recommend using conditional text because you'd have seven > variations and possibly recombinations of those seven (e.g., something > applies to three of the seven, etc.). I know that FM 8 deals with > multiple conditions much better than FM 7x, but still, seven variants > could make your head hurt just as badly as XML. > > (b) I use structured FM and I like it a lot, but it'll take a month or > two to learn, set up your own definition, and convert the manuals. I'm > not sure if you have the time to invest. One advantage to moving to > structured is that there is an awesome structured tool called InsetPlus > from West Street Consulting that will help you manage and use shared > text. Furthermore, you won't run into the problems I've heard about with > cross-references and indexing in unstructured text insets. > >
