Framers Digest, Vol 37, Issue 22

Sun Nov 23 12:21:54 PST 2008

Dear Framers,

As Rob has mentioned, footnote is a chronic problem with FrameMaker that has never been addressed by its maker. I found that out 10 years ago when I was writing my thesis. I know this problem goes at least as far back as 1990. Writers were simply advised not to use footnotes by various Tech Pubs groups because this feature did not work!

I had a problem with footnote not only appearing on the wrong page, but also with footnote number appearing it in a foreign font if the footnote appeared right after the quote that used a non-English font. I tried various methods such as creating more space in the footnote area and adding micro spaces before and after the footnote and changing the font to normal Roman font. It did not help. Considering the nature of the project and the problem at hand, I had to abandon this tool and switch to other tool for the thesis because of this problem. 

While adding an extra space for footnotes helps, it is not a foolproof method either. You might still see some footnote text shifting randomly to the next page while the footnote actually apears on the previous page. This is not a pleasant situation especially if you are working on an academic project. I am hoping Frame would pay attention to this problem. 

Tarlochan S. Nahal

Sr. Technical Writer

--- On Sat, 11/22/08, framers-request at lists.frameusers.com <framers-request at lists.frameusers.com> wrote:

From: framers-request at lists.frameusers.com <framers-request at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Framers Digest, Vol 37, Issue 22
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Date: Saturday, November 22, 2008, 12:00 AM

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. Footnote issues in FM 7.2 (Shell, Robert)
   2. Re: Footnote issues in FM 7.2 (Rick Quatro)
   3. RE: Footnote issues in FM 7.2 (Combs, Richard)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:54:33 +0200
From: "Shell, Robert" <rshell at iafrica.com>
Subject: Footnote issues in FM 7.2
To: <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Message-ID: <A652B71006BB40D18EFB46BA805CC8F4 at Porsche>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

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
> ***************************************
> 

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 09:12:50 -0500
From: "Rick Quatro" <frameexpert at truevine.net>
Subject: Re: Footnote issues in FM 7.2
To: "Shell, Robert" <rshell at iafrica.com>,
	<framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Message-ID: <99E2A32A049D4C6B820140F5A7865E38 at CARMENOFFICE>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
	reply-type=original

Hi Rob,

> 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.

Usually this is just a screen display problem. Press Control+L and the line 
should reappear.

Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing Inc
585-659-8267
www.frameexpert.com

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 21 Nov 2008 10:08:38 -0700
From: "Combs, Richard" <richard.combs at Polycom.com>
Subject: RE: Footnote issues in FM 7.2
To: "Shell, Robert" <rshell at iafrica.com>,
	<framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Message-ID:
	<2D6EB362BFB0CC4A95CC3FC0C2F19F860511F9 at wstexch03.westminster.polycom.com>

Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Shell, Robert wrote: 

> 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.
<snip> 
> 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.

The separator line comes from a reference frame named Footnote on the
reference pages. You can change the length, style, and position of the
line or the height of the frame. It works like specifying a Frame Above
on the Advanced tab of the Paragraph Designer, but Frame does it
automagically. (The footnote autonumber is also automagic, rather than
part of the pgf format definition.)

For the magic to happen, the reference frame must have the same name
(Graphics > Object Properties) as the paragraph format designated for
footnotes (Format > Document > Footnote Properties). But the names
don't
have to be Footnote. (I'm not sure if case matters.)

Because I like keyboard tagging (and have just a smidge of OCD), in my
templates the pgf and char formats that aren't intended for manual
tagging all begin with z so they drop to the bottom of the catalogs
(zFooter, zFootnote, zBullet, zFignum, etc.). So on my ref pages, the
footnote separator frames are named zFootnote and zTableFootnote. 

If your intermittent separator line isn't just a display anomaly, as
Rick suggested, check the reference frame. Or maybe try specifying that
frame as Frame Above in Paragraph Designer -- but don't be surprised if
there's weird interaction between the automagical and explicit frames
above. :-)

As for footnotes in general, I have no problem with the footnote being
on the facing page, but wouldn't want it overleaf. 

IMHO, YMMV, etc.

Richard

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
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 22
***************************************