Problems Generating TOC on Newly Translated File

[Alison Craig]

Richard:

I always tweak the layout (making changes to column widths, breaking text streams in better places, etc). I have found that no matter how much you pay for DTP they never get it exactly right - so I don't pay for final DTP costs and do it myself. We often go the extra step of sending a completed/tweaked manual to an in-country proofer (native speakers with expertise in our field) and I have never had a complaint regarding this issue.

FYI: All my manuals are laid out with numbered headings so I always know exactly where I am regardless of language (and I actually have a degree in Spanish so for this language, understanding the content is no problem).

Rick Quattro gave me some invaluable help over the phone so I (he) figured out where my inexperience had led me astray - I didn't have the correct formats selected for inclusion in the TOC.

Maybe in 10 years I'll have this program completely figured out!

Alison

 
Alison Craig, Technical Writer
Ultrasonix Medical Corporation
Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127
Fax: (604) 279-8559
E-mail: alison.craig at ultrasonix.com
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Combs, Richard [mailto:richard.combs at Polycom.com] 
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 11:24 AM
To: Alison Craig; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: Problems Generating TOC on Newly Translated File

Alison Craig wrote:
 
> I received my translated book back from the LSP complete with TOC,
which
> seemed to be fine.
> 
> After tweaking the formatting in 10 chapters and 7 Appendices, then
copying
> in the correct Variables file I tried to Update the TOC (and all
Numbering,
> Cross-references, Text Insets and OLE links).

Umm... should you really be doing this? I'm no expert on handling
translations (that's someone else's job), so maybe I'm off base. But
when we get translated books back, we generally make no changes to the
translated files (oh, occasionally there's a doc number to correct or
something like that), we just PDF them as is. (For Hebrew, the vendor
even supplies the PDF, since they have to port the RTL languages to
InDesign.) 
 
> Instead of 6 pages of proper TOC it generated less than one page of
what
> seems to be page numbers only. I have consulted the Manual and
Scriptorium
> FrameMaker book to no avail.

In the bad TOC file, select View > Reference Pages. Find the TOC
specification -- it's in a text frame with the flow name "TOC," and it
contains paragraphs that have tag names like the headings included in
the TOC, but with a "TOC" suffix (e.g., "Heading1TOC"). It sounds like
each of those pgfs contains only the page number variable (<$pagenum>). 

Now find the TOC spec in the ref pages of a good TOC and compare it to
the bad TOC spec. It may look more like this: 

	<$chapnum>	<$paratext> 			 <$pagenum>
(there are tabs in there, including a leader tab in front of <$pagenum>)

If that's the situation, try this: Copy all the text in the good TOC
specification and replace all the text in the bad TOC specification with
it. Then update/regenerate. 

If I'm completely off base regarding the situation or that doesn't solve
the problem, try spending some quality time in the "Tables of Contents"
section of the help/manual. Even if you can't figure it out, a better
understanding of TOCs in FM might help you describe the situation in
more detail. 
 

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