QA wants unique edition number in changed footers

[Daniel Emory]

--- "Andersen, Verner Engell VEA"
<verner.andersen at radiometer.dk> wrote:
> Have you any idea of how I can have the various
> edition numbers in footer of each chapter page and
> still have the possibility of importing all formats
> from all files without messing things up?
==============================
This kind of dilemma can be eliminated in structured
FM documents. The edition number, rev number, rev
date, effectivy, and similar info can be produced by
defining FrameMaker header/footer variables which pick
up the current value(s) of the applicable element
attributes. 

In mission-critical documents (aircraft maintenance
manuals, for instance) the process begins with the
technician picking a work card to perform a particular
maintenance task on a particular aircraft (the same
aircraft model can have many different configurations,
even within the same airline). The work card provides
all the information needed to assuredly select the
correct procedural instructions from the maintenance
manual (in the ATA methodology, the mechanic submits
the work card number to a database, which retrieves
the applicable procedure from the maintenance manual).


The work card information may even allow the mechanic
to examine the information in the footer of each page
of the retrieved procedure to verify that the footer
information (such as the page's effectivity, current
revision date, page block number, etc.) agrees with
what appears on the work card. All of this footer
informatin in the retrieved procedure is produced from
header/footer variables which pick up the current
values of the corresponding element attributes when
the procedure is delivered to the machanic.

As you can see, this approach, employing element
attributes which are converted by structured
FrameMaker to header/footer variables appearing in the
footer, can be used at any level of granularity, even
down to individual pages.