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

[quills at airmail.net]

I will jump in and mention that to avoid a deadline being missed, it's 
appropriate to make certain you estimate ENOUGH time to do the job.

What you are presenting is something that I would not contemplate in a 
couple of days.

For a two books to be combined, both approximately 100 pages, and if I 
had no familiarity with them, I would estimate the time for completion 
at 5 pages an hour.

Scott

Avraham Makeler wrote:
> Thanks, Art.
> (a) So you would use the same method for both Set #1 and Set #2?
> 
> (b) re: \Shared - You make \Shared contain FM files only?
> 
> (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.
> 
> (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?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> avraham
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Art Campbell <art.campbell at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Avraham,
>>
>> Question 2:
>> I handle this pretty routinely, and I do it by creating a directory
>> for each document set. Under that I have a subdirectory for \Graphics,
>> \Shared, and \Book -- obviously there are several \Book directories
>> with different names, but the graphics and shared content are used by
>> the document set so they're at the top level.
>>
>> Each FM file in \Shared is used in two or more component files. Some
>> are entire stand-alone files -- Copyright info, or the Glossary, and
>> things like that. But most are topics that are imported into a parent
>> file by reference. One place you may trip up is including heading
>> information in the files, because some books will reuse the same core
>> of information but use different head structures -- it may be under
>> and H1 in some books, and an H2 or something else in another. So when
>> possible, I try just to include text, tables and non-hierarchal
>> content.
>>
>> Question 1:
>> There's no automatic way to do this. Copy and paste, and analyze.
>>
>> Question 3:
>> No idea. 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.
>>
>>
>> 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 Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 3:23 PM, Avraham Makeler <amakeler at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>  RE: Merging books
>>>
>>> The situation:
>>>
>>> I have a client who has a large number of FM (7.2/8) books. From amongst
>>> these books, there are two particular sets of books, as follows:
>>>
>>> Set #1. Two books having about 50 - 60% identical content  (each book is
>>> ~100 pages)
>>>
>>> Set #2. Four books having about 10% identical content  (each book is
>> ~80-100
>>> pages)
>>>
>>> (No particular connection between the two sets of books; just presenting
>> the
>>> situation.)
>>>
>>> Now, the client would like to merge each of these two sets of books so
>> that
>>> each set combines the identical material. E.g., for set #1 above, either
>> the
>>> two books should be combined and the text partitioned by conditional text
>>> controls, or maybe the two books should be kept separate but the
>> identical
>>> part should be maintained in some sort of outside, third, common
>> component
>>> or "book" (or whatever such a thing would be called), and then when you
>> have
>>> to publish one of the two books, you would be able to include in "on the
>>> fly" the common, identical component.
>>>
>>> Same for set #2.
>>>
>>>
>>> Questions:
>>>
>>> 1. What mechanisms does FM provide for constructing merged solutions for
>>> each of these two sets of books?
>>> 2. Which mechanism and methodology are recommended for each of the two
>> sets
>>> of books?
>>> 3. How long should I estimate it would take me to perform merges for each
>> of
>>> the two sets of books?
>>>
>>> TIA
>>>
>>> - avi