Variables vs Cross-references [WAS: Hiding Pages?]

[Combs, Richard]

Eric Dunn wrote:  

> The situation was this: hundreds of components, multiple ways 
> of writing their descriptions, abbreviations, and 
> specifications which led to an unmanageable mass of variables.
> 
> So, I turned to cross-references.
<snip detailed description> 
> What are the downsides? Well, so far nothing. But I have an 
> itch in the back of my skull concerning Xrefs and character 
> formatting that I just can't shake. Something as to whether 
> character formatting applied in the source (all character 
> tagging is done using catalogue formats common to source and 
> destination) is kept in the destination or not...
> 
> Anyone know what I should be worrying about?

Yeah, potentially char formats, but maybe not. IIRC, there are some
formatting characteristics that are preserved in xrefs and some that
aren't. I think the basic variants of a font (e.g., bold, italic) are
discarded, but significant changes (e.g., Symbol, superscript) are
preserved. I'm afraid I don't recall the details -- maybe someone else
does? 

I deliver primarily PDFs, and I wouldn't use xrefs in this way because
they'd become working hyperlinks in the PDFs. Ugh! 

If your deliverables are printed books, of course, this isn't an issue.
:-) 

Richard


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Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
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