Print settings for *color* is inconsistant ERROR

[Steve Rickaby]

At 08:16 -0500 19/7/07, Natalie Bircher wrote:

>In FrameMaker 6.0 (Structured), when generating the book, an employee gets
>the following error messages for each file in the book:
>
>Print settings for black is inconsistent
>Print settings for cyan is inconsistent
>Print settings for magenta is inconsistent
>Print settings for yellow is inconsistent

These warning refer to the settings for the View -> Color -> Views settings. FrameMaker is warning you that these setting differ between files in the book. [Actually, I think what it is doing is telling you that they differ from the first file in the book]. Depending on the content of your FrameMaker files, it may or may not matter.

>These error msgs don't show when generating on a different employee's
>computer for the same book.

I can't explain that, but someone else here might be able to.

>In five of the files he also gets the following:
> 
>Show/Hide setting for Overlay_1 is inconsistent
>Show/Hide setting for Overlay_2 is inconsistent

This is the equivalent warning for conditional text settings, in your case conditional tags called 'Overlay_1' and 'Overlay_2'. FrameMaker is just telling you that not all files in the book have the same conditional text settings.

You can get around this by importing conditional text settings [only!] cross the book. In theory, you can get rid of the color warnings by doing the same thing for color definitions, but in practise I have found that - at least in FrameMaker 6 and 7 for Mac - it doesn't always work.

>These books are all black and white so we don't understand where the color
>thing is coming from.

Heh. That would take more space than I have here to answer ;-) In brief, FrameMaker allows you to *define* an apparently infinite [although probably not] number of colors. The color views settings takes account of all the color definitions, irrespective of whether individual color definitions are actually used in the book or not. I have seen books prepared by FrameMaker users who had a less than precise grasp of the color domain with over 200 different color definitions. [No, not the PNG <-> RGB bug, but actual color definitions.]

However, when you say that your book is 'all black and white' [by which I assume  you might mean grayscale only], be aware that colored objects can be ferreted away by FrameMaker and saved in a document's definition irrespective of whether they appear - or appear to appear ;-) - in the book.

Others may disagree, but I have found that the soundest method of determining what is actually going on with 'color' - i.e. printing plates required - in a FrameMaker book is to cast a PDF and preflight it in Acrobat Pro, FlightCheck, Pitstop or equivalent PDF analysis application.

-- 
Steve