Unresolved Cross Reference Warning Message

[Fred Ridder]

Ben Hechter wrote:

> To recap, I was getting an Unresolved Cross-Reference Warning Message each time I opened the book file, no matter how I tried to refresh or relink the cross-references. The message never appeared when generating the book, only when opening the file.
> 
> Apparently the message is somehow related to good old Missing Fonts, possibly via character styles in the cross-reference format, because it disappears when the files are opened on a machine that has the missing fonts installed.


It doesn't matter *where* the missing fonts are lurking, and they are unlikely to be in the cross-reference formats. What is making your cross-reference behave as if they are broken is the fact that there is *any* missing fonts issue.

I think a better understanding of how cross-references are handled will help you under why I say this.

Whenever you open a file that contains one or more cross-references, FrameMaker refreshes each of those references. If the reference is to another location within the same file, the refresh is straightforward unless the cross-reference truly is unresolved due to a missing or hidden cross-reference marker. If the reference points to a location that is in another file that is already open, the process is similarly straightforward. But if the reference points to a location that is in a file that is *not* already open, FrameMaker has to silently (without showing anything on your screen) peek inside the target file to retrieve the latest information for the refernce. If that file has any sort of problem that would throw a warning message during a non-silent open (e.g. an unavailable fonts message), FrameMaker is unable to peek inside it and therefore cannot find the marker it's looking for. It reports this failure to find the marker as an unresolved cross-reference. If you start by manually opening the file with the missing fonts issue, so that you can manually dismiss the warning message, then you will not get an unresolved cross-reference warnign when you open the original file because FrameMaker can now find the target marker when it updates the cross-references.

BTW, the updating of the cross-references is the reason why FrameMaker will warn you about unsaved changes when you attempt to close a file that you *know* you didn't make any edits in. Even if the cross-references did not actually change as a result of the update operation, the fact that they were refreshed counts as a change that FrameMaker thinks you ought to save.

-Fred Ridder