Consecutive Figure and Table Numbering

[Steve Rickaby]

At 18:39 -0800 22/12/06, David Spreadbury wrote:

>I am trying to set up consecutive numbering for figures and tables across multiple chapters in a book. The structure and template uses a paragraph Tag with numbering set to <n+>. Each chapter restarts at #1. According to the Framemaker 7.0 Online Manual, "Autonumbered paragraphs are numbered consecutively in a text flow. If your document contains several text flows, autonumbered paragraphs in each flow will be independent of the others."
>  
>  So my problem appears to be that each chapter is in its own flow.

David

Are you sure? Have you consciously created separate flows? (I.e. flows with different flow tags.)

> How do i get one flow across three chapters or 20 chapters?

Check the flow tag of the master pages of each document. More than likely they are all the same, and your chapters are not numbering correctly because of the settings for numbering for each chapter in the book file and/or the way numbering is defined in the relevant paragraph tags.

If they *aren't* the same, first stop and ask yourself why. There are usually several possible reasons:

. The FrameMaker files were put together by someone who didn't understand flows

. The book files were assembled from different sources and have different flow tags by chance

. The book files have different flow tags for a reason

If the latter, you may have to try to find out why. The main purpose of separate flow tags is to allow different 'stories' to flow across multiple page breaks, as is common in newspaper and magazine layouts, where a 'tickler' for an article is presented near or on the front page, and then continued on a later page. Thus there is seldom a need for multiple flows in a book (or at least, I can't think of one). This can arise through error, though: I once saw a book in which each master page had an identical A and B flow overlaid on each other. This is *really* confusing until you find out what's happening, as the text was in the A flow, but the master page had the empty B flow on top. The result of this was that no text was selectable in chapter files!

I digress... To set the numbering properties for chapters, right-click on each chapter and select 'Numbering...'. If when rebuilding the book, FrameMaker reports that numbering options differ between document and book files, accept the book file numbering override.

>  Or is there a numbering option that will get the same effect?

That will depend on how your chapter and paragraph numbers are defined. That's quite a big subject, but there is one or more good white papers on it in the FrameUsers library. Basically, you first need to make a choice as to whether to use 'old style' numbering, as was used up to the introduction of the <$chapnum> variable, or 'new style' chapter numbering based on the <$chapnum> variable. A key driver for this choice is whether you need *any* paragraph number threads to run continuously throughout the book without resetting (which it sounds as if you do):

. If you don't, you can use para numbering based on <$chapnum>. For example, the first figure of Chapter 3 called 'Figure 3.1'.

. If you do, you might be better off using 'old style' numbering based on FrameMaker numbering threads.

At a guess, it sounds as if your book template currently uses the latter option.

If I've misunderstood the problem, apologies, but the numbering white paper(s) are worth taking the time to read, as they explain this rather complex subject a lot better than does the User Guide.

-- 
Steve