question about modification date variable

[Alan Litchfield]

Hi Deirdre,

It seems odd that there is only one date no the Revisions Page. If only one
date is used I would have thought that it would appear on the title page only
and there would be no need for a Revisions Page. From what I have seen you
only have a Revisions Page to list revision dates, revision numbers, and who
validated/verified them.

Assuming what is being done is the latter, then if the date that appears on
each page is the same date as the newest date on the Revisions Page then this
is what I would do:

Part 1;
1. On the Revisions Page, make a table to contain the revision dates, numbers,
names.
2. Create a marker that is put into the table cell that contains the date you
want shown on the body pages.
3. When you need a new date, add a row to the table, type in the information
required and move the marker into the new cell that contains the new date.

Part 2;
1. On the Master pages for the body text pages put a cross reference in the
header/footer that points to the marker on the Revisions Page
2. To update the date in the header/footer use the cross references update
function (depending on whether you are using a book or stand alone file, how
you do it will vary).

By doing this you will need to manually type the new revision date onto the
Revisions Page and move the marker, then update the cross references. But that
is all.

Of course, if you have only one date on that page, then it is easy. Do the
above but you don't need to move the marker to a new cell.

Cheers
Alan

Deirdre Reagan wrote:
> Hi Alan:
>
> I'm asking because I've never done this before and I don't know how to do it.
>
> The document is a template.  There's only one date on the Record of
> Revisions, and that date appears as a cross reference on every other
> page.
>
> Basically, I'm looking at a template and attempting to figure out how
> I would add a revision date on an actual document.
>
> We've been typing in the revision date manually, but I don't know if
> that's because that's how it's supposed to be done, or if that's
> because the people here aren't using FM to it's full capacity.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Deirdre
>
> On 3/19/08, Alan Litchfield <alan at alphabyte.co.nz> wrote:
>> Hi Deirdre
>>
>> Deirdre Reagan wrote:
>> >
>> > The date on every single page is a cross reference to the original
>> > date variable on the Record of Revisions page.  Does that sound right
>> > to you?
>>
>> Logically I would think that the dates on the Revisions Page should reflect
>> what are on the individual pages, but that depends on how it is structured.
>> Do
>> you have a revision number and the date of that revision on the Revisions
>> Page
>> which matches the most recent date within the document? Or are the revisions
>> dated only when a new version is numbered?
>>
>> Alternatively, have you got a list of all the pages on the Revisions Page
>> and
>> the date of their last revision?
>>
>> >
>> > I'm asking because I'm wondering how to deal with revisions.  How do I
>> > modify the date on the pages that have been revised?  Put a
>> > modification date variable on the Record of Revisions page then
>> > manually erase the cross-reference on each affected page and insert a
>> > cross-reference to the Record of Revision modification date variable?
>> >
>>
>> How you do this may depend on what the answer to the above is.
>>
>> Cheers
>> Alan
>>
>> --
>> Alan Litchfield MBus (Hons), MNZCS
>> AlphaByte
>> PO Box 1941, Auckland
>> http://www.alphabyte.co.nz
>>
>>
>


-- 
Alan Litchfield MBus (Hons), MNZCS
AlphaByte
PO Box 1941, Auckland
http://www.alphabyte.co.nz