Creating cross book links that work in a PDF file

[Fred Ridder]

Jerilynne Knight is in a bit of a panic:
> I'm working with a client who has a large set of FrameMaker (7.x version)
> files in two separate books. One is the database documentation set and the
> other is the end user (GUI) documentation.
> 
> The end user documentation has many, many, many cross references to the
> database document (to pick up field names, descriptions, values, and that
> kind of thing).
> 
> The links are working properly in FrameMaker...when you click the link in
> the GUI documentation it opens to the right location in the database
> documentation.
> 
> However, when we create the PDF files, the links are "hot" and can't find
> the file with the source information. I could swear I've done this before
> and am going totally blank on how to get this to work correctly!
> 
> Anybody out there who can clear the fog?


To make the inter-book links work in the PDFs, there are a number of conditions that must be met:

-Both book files must be open when you generate each PDF. (Component files need not be open, but the book files *must* be.)

-The names of the PDF files must match the names of the book files (except for the extensions, of course). Any difference in name means the links will refer to a non-existant file.

-The PDF files must be in the same relative directory locations as the book files. The easiest case is to have both book files are in the same directory, because then there will be no path component in the PDF links. If the books are in different directories, then you must create directories with the same names and relative locations to contain the PDFs.

-You need to have the "Create Named Destinations for All Paragraphs" option selected in the PDF Setup dialog for both books. FrameMaker has no way of knowing what paragraphs in a given book might be referred to from an external book, so without selecting this option Frame might eliminate some named destinations that are needed for intr-book links.

-Fred Ridder