Questions on viewing conditional text

[Peter Gold]

On 10/30/07, Brad Simmons <bsimmons at agleader.com> wrote:
>
> Hello fellow FM users,
>
> I'm delving into the world of conditional text for the first time since
> I started using FrameMaker, and I've encountered a couple of unforseen
> problems. I'm wondering if someone knows how to work around these?
>
> 1. First, I've marked the two versions of my manual with two different
> colors. This is quite handy when I'm working with my file before I've
> printed it. However, when I went to make the .PDF, I was surprised to
> find that it preserved these colors in the PDF! I didn't want it to do
> that - I want my conditional text to look like regular text.



First Question: Is there any way I can specify that the colors are
> viewed on the screen only, and not in the final outputted document?


Thanks for the question. I tried setting a condition tag's color to
non-printing in View > Color > Color Definitions, but I didn't realize after
all these years using FM that condition tags are immune to this non-printing
setting. Normal text and graphics that use the same color do respect the
non-printing setting. I didn't print to paper, just PDF. However, I also
learned that not only does the color not print, the colored text in my test
is deleted! I was expecting no-color (white or paper) text. Hmmm...

Perhaps this is because the standard way to avoid conditional markings in
output is to disable Show Condition Indicators in the Conditional Text >
Show/Hide dialog box. It's a step you have to remember before creating
output.

2. Second, I've specified a number of bulleted items as conditional
> text. FM had no problem making the text conditional, but it completely
> ignored the bullets themselves, and thus I have bullets hanging out on
> the page with no text after them. This looks pretty weird.
>
> Second question: Is there a way to specify to FM that the bullets have
> to be included with the conditional text?



Triple-click the paragraphs to be conditionalized, or, with View > Text
Symbols ON, select across the paragraph marks of the paragraphs, then apply
the condition tag. You've probably just selected text IN the paragraphs, but
not the paragraphs themselves.

HTH


Regards,

Peter
_______________________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices