Phantom index entries

Thu Aug 3 10:45:54 PDT 2006

2006-08-03-04T17:45Z

Murray -

I just saw Frank Stearns' posting as I was finishing my missive, below.
I agree with Frank's projection about what I refer to as "LAN
interference," "network collisions," and "network congestion."  I've
seen FrameMaker do some mighty-odd things here that, apparently, our
colleagues don't experience.  At least, they don't discuss such
intermittent, oddball behaviors on this list.

Believe you me:  "I feel your pain."

I recently relearned that FrameMaker sometimes stacks markers one on top
of the other.  The only thing visible is one marker, but there might be
more than one marker at the same place.  I have found six markers
stacked atop one another on the reference page named "BookHTML."

I think you might find an "Index" marker that contains an entry such as
" 16" or " 18" or " 24" - without the quotation marks.  Notice that each
number is preceded by at least one blank ( " " ).  I believe that in
such a situation, FrameMaker detects the blank or blanks, recognizes it
or them as "symbols," and quite happily sorts the contents to 
appear as you have reported them.

Try this.

  1.  By whatever means, go to the marker that you believe is the
offender.  The marker appears highlighted.  Remember that the marker
might be very hard to see.  It might be at the very end of a bit of text
that is next to a text frame or a line in a table.

  2.  If necessary or desired, zoom in on the file until you can see the
marker that is highlighted.  The marker becomes more-readily visible.

  3.  Press the left arrow key ( <- ) once.  The insertion point moves
to the left.  If the marker is at the right side of a letter, the point
moves to the left side of the letter. 

  4.  Press the right arrow key ( -> ) once.  The insertion point moves
into an "invisible" place between the right side of the letter and the
left side of the marker.  The insertion point remains visible.

  5.  Press the spacebar once, twice, or thrice.  (Hey, you can "go
crazy" here because you can't really hurt anything, and hitting the
spacebar is better than biting the edge of your work surface.)  One or
more blanks appear to the left of the marker.

  6.  Press the right arrow key ( -> ) _only_once_, and press the
spacebar _only_once_.

  7.  If this movement produces only one or more blanks - and nothing
else - you're dealing with only one marker.

  8.  If this movement produces a blank _and_ another marker begins to
appear, repeat steps six and seven until no more markers appear.

  9.  If FrameMaker's "Marker" dialog box is not displayed, display it.
Press Alt+S+M.  The "Marker" dialog box appears.

 10.  Highlight each marker one-at-a-time and examine both its type
(such as "Index" or "TopicAlias" or "Author" in the title bar) and its
contents.

Again, I think you might find an "Index" marker that contains an entry
such as " 16" or " 18" or " 24" - without the quotation marks.  Notice
that each number is preceded by at least one blank ( " " ).  I believe
that in such a situation, FrameMaker detects the blank or blanks,
recognizes it or them as "symbols," and quite happily sorts the contents
to 
appear as you have reported them.

Good luck!

Dave Stamm
Publications Specialist, Senior Staff
General Dynamics C4 Systems, Inc.
Command Systems
1700 Magnavox Way, Suite 200
Fort Wayne, Indiana  46804-1552
US
tel:  260-434-9620
fax:  260.434.9601
dave.stamm at gdc4s.com
http://www.gdc4s.com/

-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces+dave.stamm=gdc4s.com at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces+dave.stamm=gdc4s.com at lists.frameusers.com] On
Behalf Of Murray Moore
Sent: 2006-08-01-Tuesday 09:55
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Phantom index entries

FM 6.0p405
XP Pro Version 2002 Service Pack 2

In my book's index, page numbers are appearing under the Symbols
heading; 16, 18, 24, etc.

I traced each of these numbers to its source index marker, e.g. one of
the page numbers under the Symbols heading, 34, is the A Year Ago This
Month button heading on page 34.

On page 34 I deleted and recreated the index marker. But when I updated
the book and the index, 34 continues to display under Symbols.

On page 34 I deleted the index marker. I updated the book and the index.
Not only does 16 continue to display under Symbols, but A Year Ago This
Month 34 continues to display under the A heading.

Our IT Dept. head suggested I might have exceeded the maximum size for a
FM file. I do not think so because I have produced thicker books.

/\/\
Murray Moore
Documentation Department
CSDC Systems Inc.
Mississauga, Ontario

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