Containers and Insets-Building the Manual

[Combs, Richard]

Judy wrote: 
 
> I read several posts concerning text insets in container documents and
> that sounded like the perfect solution.  After a few tests on a very
> small scale, I moved forward to breaking down  and reassembling the
> first 3 chapters of our user manual.
> Ch.1:  63 pgs,    61 insets
> Ch.2: 224 pgs, 168 insets
> Ch 3:   83 pgs,   71 insets
> 
> Each chapter (individually) worked fine, so with that much done, I
> decided to build a test book and work out the issues around
> cross-references and hypertext before I continued on to the remaining
6
> chapters.
> 
> My problem is that, with all of the fm files and books open at once,
my
> computer slowed *way* down!  I built a book with the 3 container
> documents and added a TOC, but had trouble scrolling through the TOC.
> Nothing "crashed", but it was so slow it's clear that I'm headed for
> trouble.

That seems like a lot of text insets, but without knowing how/where
you're going to reuse them, I can't say whether you've gone too far
(there's not much point in all this modularization unless the insets are
pieces that will be reused a lot, but in different combinations and
configurations). 

Is each text inset an FM file? It doesn't have to be. A text inset needs
to be a complete flow, but a single FM file can contain many separate
flows (each with its own flow name). So you can put just about any
number of text insets in one file. You can even use this as an
organizing method, putting all text insets of a certain category,
subject, purpose, etc., together in an appropriately-named file.
Consolidating all those text insets into a handful of files may solve
your problem.

The process isn't difficult: 

1) On the last page of one of the existing text inset source documents,
select Special > Add Disconnected Pages. Set Number of Pages to Add to
the number of text insets you want to store in this file and click Add.
When FM tries to discourage you from proceeding, tell it you're sure.

2) On each added, empty page, paste one of the text insets you want to
store in this file. Don't worry if some of them are more than a page --
FM will create new pages as needed for each flow (each disconnected page
you added is a separate flow; each has its own end-of-flow symbol).

3) Give each flow a unique, meaningful name: 

-- Select a text frame in the flow and select Graphics > Object
Properties. 
-- In the Customize Text Frame dialog, enter the name in the Flow Tag
field and click Set. 
-- In the Rename Flow dialog, select Rename Current Flow Only and click
Rename. 

When you want to import one of the text insets, select the file and
then, in the Import Text Flow by Reference, select the flow by name. 

HTH!
Richard 


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