Merging books: Need FM mechanisms and methodologies for merging books with large fraction of identical material

[Linda G. Gallagher]

I've not followed all the details of this thread, but like Art, I use a
combination of conditional text, variables, and text insets when I need to
produce multiple versions of content that have a decent amount of shared
content. 

Sometimes I'll share entire chapters, because they're identical or nearly
so. Conditions handle the "nearly identical" situations. Sometimes I'll use
insets with conditions. I typically use conditioned variables for product
names, as those usually vary and are the driver of the differences
(different, but similar models of a product). So, it becomes a judgment call
on what combination of devices to use.

But, using these methods is much more efficient and saves maintenance time
if there is a significant amount of common information.

There are a number of issues related to text insets. If you've not used them
before, you may want to search this list. I also have a handout on my web
site from a presentation I did a while back. Check my Resources page for
Single Sourcing on a Shoestring with FrameMaker and WebWorks Publisher. I
also now use a FrameScript to fix the xrefs to and from insets in PDFs. It
works great. Rick Quatro, who is on this list, created the script.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Linda G. Gallagher
TechCom Plus, LLC
lindag at techcomplus dot com
www.techcomplus.com
303-450-9076 or 800-500-3144
User guides, online help, FrameMaker and
WebWorks ePublisher templates
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Art Campbell
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 9:23 AM
To: Avraham Makeler
Cc: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Merging books: Need FM mechanisms and methodologies for merging
books with large fraction of identical material

You certainly could go that route.

However, you'll also notice that I didn't exclude using CT at all. I
use both shared content and CT, together, on most document set level
projects. I usually use shared content to manage large chunks of
information, and CT to manage smaller items within either the shared
files or the parent files. It just depends on the content of the
books, and I don't have enough info to make a judgement call.

But there's nothing in the information that you presented that would
make it a bad or a good choice, or lead me to think that one solution
rather than a blend would be a better way to go.

Art Campbell
               art.campbell at gmail.com
  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
                                                      No disclaimers apply.
                                                               DoD 358



On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 11:14 AM, Avraham Makeler <amakeler at gmail.com>
wrote:
> The penny just dropped ... I noticed that you did not recommend (or even
> suggest) making them into book and using Conditional Text, even the Set #2
> which has the books (four) having about only 10% identical content.
> Why, may I ask, did you not recommend Conditional Text?
> avraham
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 5:01 PM, Art Campbell <art.campbell at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> Replies cut in below...
>>
>> Art Campbell
>>               art.campbell at gmail.com
>>  "... In my opinion, there's nothing in this world beats a '52
>> Vincent and a redheaded girl." -- Richard Thompson
>>                                                      No disclaimers
apply.
>>                                                               DoD 358
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 10:54 AM, Avraham Makeler <amakeler at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Thanks, Art.
>> > (a) So you would use the same method for both Set #1 and Set #2?
>>
>> I think so; the only real difference seems to be the amount of shared
>> info.
>> I might change my mind if I had the files to look at and play with,
>> but....
>>
>> > (b) re: \Shared - You make \Shared contain FM files only?
>>
>> Yes, that's the way I do it. Very rarely there are text files to
>> include, but what other files (not including graphics) would you
>> include?
>>
>> > (c) re: \Graphics - Often many graphics are not shared. So I suppose in
>> > that
>> > case you would have a 'Shared Graphics' folder, but also a
>> > separate \Graphics folder for each book.
>>
>> You could certainly do it that way. I'm not sure that I would because
>> there's no way to know how many graphics are reused and how many are
>> in the \Shared files. You don't want a graphic in a \Shared file to be
>> buried in a book subdirectory.
>>
>> I've found it easier to lump all graphics together so that when one
>> needs to be changed, it ripples automatically no matter where or how
>> many times it's used. YMMV.
>>
>> > (d)
>> >>> I'd guesstimate a day per book for conversion, but that's a
>> > WAG. Could easily be half that or twice that, depending on how the
>> > books are set up and how fast you are.
>> > - Well, I have never done it before.
>> > - So a reasonable estimate for a set with two books is that it could
>> > take
>> > two days?
>> If you're going to take it all the way to building new books with the
>> shared content, that are ready to go out the door, yes, easily.
>
>
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