Containers and Insets-Building the Manual

[Judy]

Jing Torralba wrote:
>
> I use Richard's technique in creating insets in multiple flows within 
> the same source document. The insets populate cells of many similar 
> tables where one table uses 100% of the insets and the rest, only a 
> subset of all insets in different combinations. The tables describe 
> the options for adding an administrator, and there are three types of 
> administrators with unique and common options.
>
> Once I nailed down the process, inset management worked like a charm.
>
> Judy, I want to add this, in case you are producing PDFs and there are 
> cross-references from your inset files to external files, meaning, to 
> the container file itself or to other chapters in the book. These 
> xrefs will be broken in the PDF. For this you can use Rick Quatro's 
> script to unlock the insets, generate the PDF, then lock them again. 
> This preserves the links.
>
>  
>
> HTH too!
>
> Jing
>
> ,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,.-*+*-.,!
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Combs" <richard.combs at Polycom.com>
> To: "Judy" <judy at hypack.com>, framers at lists.frameusers.com
> Sent: Thursday, May 21, 2009 1:15:48 PM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
> Subject: RE: Containers and Insets-Building the Manual
>
> 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
> ------
> rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
> 303-777-0436
> ------
>
>
>
>
>
>
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I've actually used Richard's technique for insets smaller than a topic, 
but hadn't thought about doing it for larger sections.  It would 
certainly cut down on the number of files I have to organize *and* that 
FM has to open and close.  I'll think about how to organize things and 
give it a try.

I don't usually have the Character and Paragraph Designers open, but 
I'll keep it in mind.

I'd also picked up on the problems with cross-references between PDF 
documents, but thanks for the reminder.

Thanks so much!
Judy