Footnote issues in FM 7.2

Fri Nov 21 01:54:33 PST 2008

Hi:
My rig is FM 7.2 b144 running on Vista Business.

I do scholarly publishing.  Footnotes on the bottom of the page in FM is an 
issue that I have raised both within this list and with Adobe (no reply from 
the latter).

I do not believe it is a train smash to have a single footnote on the 
following page after the footnote call (the number in the text). One still 
finds these in great published works. I have learned to live with this 
limitation since correction is very awkward and frustrating. Especially if 
you are editing the text until publication time.  Nevertheless one cannot 
but hope Adobe will fix it.

These are my workarounds

go to the Format menu
then to document
then to footnote properties

In the footnote properties box, max out what Adobe confusingly calls the 
"column" length, but what is really the footnote length. This seems to gives 
FM an extra little room beyond the Adobe default. No silver bullet but every 
little bit helps...

Use the default "footnote" para format name in that same box. That seems to 
trigger the footnote separator line (see below) more regularly than if you 
used something else.  Maybe this is just superstition.

Of course you can then change the footnote format to whatever you want in 
the designer.

Brutal and obvious ways.

1. Have fewer footnotes
2. Have shorter footnotes,  Use the Chicago short title system,
e.g. Smith, Using Footnotes, 139.
4. Inform your authors that long substantive footnotes are not fashionable, 
and that any footnote text should be elevated to the body (if it is worth 
anything). Keep footnotes strictly for citations. With shorter footnotes, FM 
will cope much better. Four lines or longer and FM starts acting up. My 
authors are just so delighted to have footnotes on the bottom of the page 
that they comply. University publishers steer clear of footnotes in favour 
of the horrible low class endnote.

Full text footnote justification seems to add to the page logic burden of FM 
so I avoid it.

My footnote font is always two points smaller than the main text. This helps 
too.Go down to six points to see if there is an improvement and then work 
your way up.

I know of no other program which does such an excellent job of juggling all 
the page logic variables as FM does. I use graphs and pics and strapheads. 
Try to do this in any other program and you will see how slippery the slope 
is. FM's stability is legendary

My current gripe is the footnote line that sometimes appears and sometimes 
does not. Fixing that seems to require putting the cursor in the footnote 
and formatting manually with the enter key.

Would be grateful for more input from the old hands here.

Rob

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <framers-request at lists.frameusers.com>
To: <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 10:00 AM
Subject: Framers Digest, Vol 37, Issue 21

> Send Framers mailing list submissions to
> framers at lists.frameusers.com
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/listinfo/framers
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> framers-request at lists.frameusers.com
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> framers-owner at lists.frameusers.com
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Framers digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: footnote placement (Graeme R Forbes)
>   2. Re: Single sourcing 2 manuals and one help
>      (susan.mcdonald at teradyne.com)
>   3. R6002 - Floating Point Not Loaded!
>      (Salvador.SorianoJr at wartsila.com)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:19:25 -0700 (MST)
> From: Graeme R Forbes <Graeme.Forbes at Colorado.EDU>
> Subject: Re: footnote placement
> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Message-ID: <20081120021925.AFP16409 at robin.int.colorado.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> Been a while since we had one of these, this one from Chris Seal:
>
> "Sometimes a footnote reference in text is on one page but the footnote is 
> on
> the following page.  From an editorial viewpoint is it OK to have a 
> footnote on
> the page following the in-text reference?
> If not OK, how do I get FrameMaker to ensure the footnote is on the same
> page as its reference?"
>
> Chris: It's not ok if there's enough room at the bottom of the page to fit 
> the first
> two or three lines of the note (some would say the first line). And, there 
> is no
> automatic way of getting FrameMaker to break notes correctly. There is a
> manual method, which I describe below.
>
> I think it's now safe to assume that this flaw in FM will never be fixed. 
> One of
> the few pluses in my being forced to leave FM (i'm on a Mac) is that I 
> leave this
> mess behind.
>
> Graeme Forbes
>
> ****************
> Part II To make footnotes break correctly across (one-column) pages:
>
> The Workaround
>
> Write your document in the normal way, using Frame's footnoting, and 
> ignore
> problem footnotes. Then when you have done everything you have to do that
> could affect page-breaks (including generating a bibliography, if you use
> Endnote or similar), save a new version ("doc.fixed") and in it do nothing 
> but fix
> the footnotes and print the public version. Go thro' your document (use
> Find/Replace with Find set to "Footnote") and see if you have any notes 
> whose
> text is on the wrong page, and if there are some, see if you can 
> reposition their
> numbers in the body text, or otherwise edit the note, so that the text 
> jumps
> back to the correct page (a very slight adjustment in line-spacing may do 
> it). If
> this can't be done for some note, then if there are no other notes on the 
> page
> that the text of your note has been pushed onto, do (A), and if there are 
> other
> notes on this page, do (B).
>
> (A) Find out how much of the note will fit onto the page it should be on. 
> Do this
> by successive cutting and pasting of lines from the bottom of the note 
> until it
> jumps back to the correct page (note that if you do two successive cuts 
> with no
> paste in between you may have lost a chunk of the note's text, and FM 
> lacks
> multiple undo; but you can go back to your original version to recover the 
> lost
> text, since you're working on a copy, right?). Observe how much of the 
> note
> you've cut (memory image!) and estimate how much space you'll need at the
> bottom of the following page for the rest of the note (the "rest of the 
> note" is
> the smallest chunk you can cut off the bottom that makes the uncut part 
> jump
> back to the right page). With the cursor in the line that will (you think) 
> become
> the last body text line when the rest of the note is placed, insert an 
> anchored
> frame (choose "below current line") that pushes all lower lines of body 
> text onto
> the next page. Use the Properties dialog to get the anchored frame to have 
> the
> dimensions and alignment you want. Within the anchored frame create a text
> frame of the right dimensions to hold the final segment of your note, and 
> paste
> that segment into the text frame. (Draw the text frame without too much
> fussing, then use the Properties dialog to get it to be the right width 
> and
> height.)
>
> If you didn't guess right, you can select the anchored frame symbol and 
> cut it
> from its current line, go up or down some lines as appropriate, and paste.
>
> You may want space between the top of the text frame and the top of the
> anchored frame to allow for a separator rule, which you draw with the line 
> tool.
>
> The paragraph format of the text you've pasted into the text frame is 
> probably
> "Body" and you'll have to change it to, say, "Footnote".
>
> (B) If there are other notes on the page that contains the text of your 
> note
> before you start cutting, then follow essentially the same procedure as 
> (A), but
> instead of putting the anchored frame for the spillover in a line of body 
> text,
> put it in the first line of the first note following the one you're 
> working on. If
> you set the anchored frame position for "Top of Column" the frame you 
> create
> will be directly above the note its anchor is in, it won't be at the top 
> of the page.
> Apparently FM treats the space occupied by footnotes as its own column.
>
>
> If you are unlucky, A or B may generate a new incorrectly positioned 
> note - the
> space needed for the text of the last note now on the page after inserting 
> the
> frame may not exist, resulting in the entire text of that note getting 
> shifted
> onto the next page. So you have to create more frames and do more cutting 
> and
> pasting.
>
>
> One other irritant: if you are using right-justification, the last line of 
> the part of
> a split note that's on the page with the body-text note-number may not 
> reach
> the edge of the column. The best fix for this is to select the entire 
> bottom line
> and apply spread to it, starting with 0.1% and increasing until you get 
> the line to
> look justified. Probably 0.5% is as high as you'll have to go.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:06:53 -0500
> From: susan.mcdonald at teradyne.com
> Subject: Re: Single sourcing 2 manuals and one help
> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Message-ID:
> <OF89CC9543.3F4D7FD3-ON85257507.00525F83-85257507.005306EC at notes.teradyne.com>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>
> I would suggest using 1 book file for the online output and 1 book file
> for the paper output.
>
> When I output multiple print versions of source files, I have a unique
> book file and cover for each output version. In each individual cover, I
> set the variables and conditions. Files may appear in multiple books.
>
> To build a particular version, I open that book file, open all the books
> within that book file, then import the variables and conditions from the
> cover into all the other files in the book.
>
> I haven't done any work outputting to online Help from Frame, so can't
> help you with that.
>
> Good luck!
>
>
> Susan McDonald, Technical Writer
> Teradyne, Inc.
> susan.mcdonald at teradyne.com
> 978-370-1429
>
>
> "Andersen, Verner Engell VEA" <verner.andersen at radiometer.dk> asked:
>
> I am single-sourcing 2 paper manuals and one online help in one. The
> online help is implemented in Webworks Publisher where you globally can
> define what conditions to hide and what to show.
>
> .
> .
> .
>
> I have the following output combinations:
>
> online + release 14
> online + release 15
> Paper + release 14 + variant a  (as either conditional text or
> variables)
> Paper + release 15 + variant b (as either conditional text or variables)
>
>
> Some of the chapters only belong to the paper manual.
>
> I believe that the foolproof thing is to import all conditions to all
> files in the book and set the whole book to the various output
> combinations.
>
> On the other and it seems a bit superfluos to have files with
> conditional text definitions that are not used.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:24:19 +0800
> From: <Salvador.SorianoJr at wartsila.com>
> Subject: R6002 - Floating Point Not Loaded!
> To: <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> Message-ID:
> <253EFD9B7FA54D4F9936249721E3EA18031229B3 at sgs0200.accdom.for.int>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> Hi,
>
> I downloaded an xml file from our server and tried to open it with
> framemaker (v.8), the content is there but when I look unto its
> structure view this error prompts in:
>
> Runtime Error!
>
> R6002
>   -floating point not loaded
>
> Can anybody explain me anything about this.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Best regards,
> Salvador B. Soriano Jr
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> You are currently subscribed to
> Framers.
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to
> http://lists.frameusers.com/mailman/listinfo/framers
> Send administrative questions to listadmin at frameusers.com. Visit
> http://www.frameusers.com/ for more resources and info.
>
> End of Framers Digest, Vol 37, Issue 21
> ***************************************
> 