Disappearing anchored frames: strange FrameMaker bug

[Steve Rickaby]

I have made a little progress by messing with a test file. I'm still looking for quick fixes, of necessity.

The template for this book was inherited from an Indian company, and had some bad stuff in it (such as requiring a triple-click to select a word rather than a double-click (!?&*?!), of which perhaps not all has been cleaned out. The main flow has a 30-point left/right side-head margin, although I have no idea why: it's not used for anything. We are stuck with this design as several books have already been published using it.

Anyway, in the test file I can make a specific figure 'disappear' by floating it. By experimentation, it seems that this problem only occurs if the anchored frame is wide enough to move into the side-head margin. This effect is reproducible:

. Set frame width to be inside side-head space

. Float it - figure behaves as expected

. Enlarge frame so that it just expands into side-head space

. Anchored frame vanishes

. Undo - anchored frame reappears

When the frame is visible, FrameMaker places it such that it divides the rows of a table. That might be part of the bug.

This at least gives me a possible workaround. I will persist.

-- 
Steve