Re: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual
Jing Torralba wrote: I use Richard's technique in creating insets in multiple flows within the same source document. The insets populate cells of many similar tables where one table uses 100% of the insets and the rest, only a subset of all insets in different combinations. The tables describe the options for adding an administrator, and there are three types of administrators with unique and common options. Once I nailed down the process, inset management worked like a charm. Judy, I want to add this, in case you are producing PDFs and there are cross-references from your inset files to external files, meaning, to the container file itself or to other chapters in the book. These xrefs will be broken in the PDF. For this you can use Rick Quatro's script to unlock the insets, generate the PDF, then lock them again. This preserves the links. HTH too! Jing ,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,! - Original Message - From: Richard Combs richard.co...@polycom.com To: Judy j...@hypack.com, framers@lists.frameusers.com Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:15:48 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: RE: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual Judy wrote: I read several posts concerning text insets in container documents and that sounded like the perfect solution. After a few tests on a very small scale, I moved forward to breaking down and reassembling the first 3 chapters of our user manual. Ch.1: 63 pgs,61 insets Ch.2: 224 pgs, 168 insets Ch 3: 83 pgs, 71 insets Each chapter (individually) worked fine, so with that much done, I decided to build a test book and work out the issues around cross-references and hypertext before I continued on to the remaining 6 chapters. My problem is that, with all of the fm files and books open at once, my computer slowed *way* down! I built a book with the 3 container documents and added a TOC, but had trouble scrolling through the TOC. Nothing crashed, but it was so slow it's clear that I'm headed for trouble. That seems like a lot of text insets, but without knowing how/where you're going to reuse them, I can't say whether you've gone too far (there's not much point in all this modularization unless the insets are pieces that will be reused a lot, but in different combinations and configurations). Is each text inset an FM file? It doesn't have to be. A text inset needs to be a complete flow, but a single FM file can contain many separate flows (each with its own flow name). So you can put just about any number of text insets in one file. You can even use this as an organizing method, putting all text insets of a certain category, subject, purpose, etc., together in an appropriately-named file. Consolidating all those text insets into a handful of files may solve your problem. The process isn't difficult: 1) On the last page of one of the existing text inset source documents, select Special Add Disconnected Pages. Set Number of Pages to Add to the number of text insets you want to store in this file and click Add. When FM tries to discourage you from proceeding, tell it you're sure. 2) On each added, empty page, paste one of the text insets you want to store in this file. Don't worry if some of them are more than a page -- FM will create new pages as needed for each flow (each disconnected page you added is a separate flow; each has its own end-of-flow symbol). 3) Give each flow a unique, meaningful name: -- Select a text frame in the flow and select Graphics Object Properties. -- In the Customize Text Frame dialog, enter the name in the Flow Tag field and click Set. -- In the Rename Flow dialog, select Rename Current Flow Only and click Rename. When you want to import one of the text insets, select the file and then, in the Import Text Flow by Reference, select the flow by name. HTH! Richard Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 -- ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as jingtorra...@comcast.net. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/jingtorralba%40comcast.net Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. I've actually used Richard's technique for insets smaller than a topic, but hadn't thought about doing it for larger sections. It would certainly cut down on the number of files I have to organize *and* that FM has to open and close. I'll think about how to organize things and give it a try. I don't usually have the Character and Paragraph Designers open, but I'll keep it in mind
RE: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual
Judy wrote: I read several posts concerning text insets in container documents and that sounded like the perfect solution. After a few tests on a very small scale, I moved forward to breaking down and reassembling the first 3 chapters of our user manual. Ch.1: 63 pgs,61 insets Ch.2: 224 pgs, 168 insets Ch 3: 83 pgs, 71 insets Each chapter (individually) worked fine, so with that much done, I decided to build a test book and work out the issues around cross-references and hypertext before I continued on to the remaining 6 chapters. My problem is that, with all of the fm files and books open at once, my computer slowed *way* down! I built a book with the 3 container documents and added a TOC, but had trouble scrolling through the TOC. Nothing crashed, but it was so slow it's clear that I'm headed for trouble. That seems like a lot of text insets, but without knowing how/where you're going to reuse them, I can't say whether you've gone too far (there's not much point in all this modularization unless the insets are pieces that will be reused a lot, but in different combinations and configurations). Is each text inset an FM file? It doesn't have to be. A text inset needs to be a complete flow, but a single FM file can contain many separate flows (each with its own flow name). So you can put just about any number of text insets in one file. You can even use this as an organizing method, putting all text insets of a certain category, subject, purpose, etc., together in an appropriately-named file. Consolidating all those text insets into a handful of files may solve your problem. The process isn't difficult: 1) On the last page of one of the existing text inset source documents, select Special Add Disconnected Pages. Set Number of Pages to Add to the number of text insets you want to store in this file and click Add. When FM tries to discourage you from proceeding, tell it you're sure. 2) On each added, empty page, paste one of the text insets you want to store in this file. Don't worry if some of them are more than a page -- FM will create new pages as needed for each flow (each disconnected page you added is a separate flow; each has its own end-of-flow symbol). 3) Give each flow a unique, meaningful name: -- Select a text frame in the flow and select Graphics Object Properties. -- In the Customize Text Frame dialog, enter the name in the Flow Tag field and click Set. -- In the Rename Flow dialog, select Rename Current Flow Only and click Rename. When you want to import one of the text insets, select the file and then, in the Import Text Flow by Reference, select the flow by name. HTH! Richard Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 -- ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
RE: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual
Re this step: 2) On each added, empty page, paste one of the text insets you want to store in this file. Don't worry if some of them are more than a page -- FM will create new pages as needed for each flow (each disconnected page you added is a separate flow; each has its own end-of-flow symbol). Just to be clear: Place the text cursor into the flow (click in the text frame) before you paste. Richard Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 -- ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
Re: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual
I use Richard's technique in creating insets in multiple flows within the same source document. The insets populate cells of many similar tables where one table uses 100% of the insets and the rest, only a subset of all insets in different combinations. The tables describe the options for adding an administrator, and there are three types of administrators with unique and common options. Once I nailed down the process, inset management worked like a charm. Judy, I want to add this, in case you are producing PDFs and there are cross-references from your inset files to external files, meaning, to the container file itself or to other chapters in the book. These xrefs will be broken in the PDF. For this you can use Rick Quatro's script to unlock the insets, generate the PDF, then lock them again. This preserves the links. HTH too! Jing ,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,! - Original Message - From: Richard Combs richard.co...@polycom.com To: Judy j...@hypack.com, framers@lists.frameusers.com Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:15:48 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific Subject: RE: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual Judy wrote: I read several posts concerning text insets in container documents and that sounded like the perfect solution. After a few tests on a very small scale, I moved forward to breaking down and reassembling the first 3 chapters of our user manual. Ch.1: 63 pgs, 61 insets Ch.2: 224 pgs, 168 insets Ch 3: 83 pgs, 71 insets Each chapter (individually) worked fine, so with that much done, I decided to build a test book and work out the issues around cross-references and hypertext before I continued on to the remaining 6 chapters. My problem is that, with all of the fm files and books open at once, my computer slowed *way* down! I built a book with the 3 container documents and added a TOC, but had trouble scrolling through the TOC. Nothing crashed, but it was so slow it's clear that I'm headed for trouble. That seems like a lot of text insets, but without knowing how/where you're going to reuse them, I can't say whether you've gone too far (there's not much point in all this modularization unless the insets are pieces that will be reused a lot, but in different combinations and configurations). Is each text inset an FM file? It doesn't have to be. A text inset needs to be a complete flow, but a single FM file can contain many separate flows (each with its own flow name). So you can put just about any number of text insets in one file. You can even use this as an organizing method, putting all text insets of a certain category, subject, purpose, etc., together in an appropriately-named file. Consolidating all those text insets into a handful of files may solve your problem. The process isn't difficult: 1) On the last page of one of the existing text inset source documents, select Special Add Disconnected Pages. Set Number of Pages to Add to the number of text insets you want to store in this file and click Add. When FM tries to discourage you from proceeding, tell it you're sure. 2) On each added, empty page, paste one of the text insets you want to store in this file. Don't worry if some of them are more than a page -- FM will create new pages as needed for each flow (each disconnected page you added is a separate flow; each has its own end-of-flow symbol). 3) Give each flow a unique, meaningful name: -- Select a text frame in the flow and select Graphics Object Properties. -- In the Customize Text Frame dialog, enter the name in the Flow Tag field and click Set. -- In the Rename Flow dialog, select Rename Current Flow Only and click Rename. When you want to import one of the text insets, select the file and then, in the Import Text Flow by Reference, select the flow by name. HTH! Richard Richard G. Combs Senior Technical Writer Polycom, Inc. richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom 303-223-5111 -- rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom 303-777-0436 -- ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as jingtorra...@comcast.net. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/jingtorralba%40comcast.net Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info. ___ You are currently subscribed to Framers as arch...@mail-archive.com. Send list messages to fram...@lists.frameusers.com. To unsubscribe send a blank email to framers-unsubscr...@lists.frameusers.com or visit http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/options/framers/archive%40mail-archive.com Send administrative questions to listad...@frameusers.com. Visit http
