can a chapter in a book be set to conditional?

[Combs, Richard]

Ragnar Hanas wrote:
 
> I have produced 2 books from one using conditional text for UK and US
> spelling and metric units and those parts of the text that are
different.
> The forewords are different, and here whole pages are conditional. If
you
> have the appendix in a different file, you could just make that whole
text
> conditional, and in the book where the appendix is not needed, you
would
> just be adding an extra blank page when all the conditional text is
hidden
> (or insert a conditional picture on this page if you don't want it
blank).
> I
> much prefer to have only one book, since most of the updates are
needed in
> both language versions.

Sorry, but that makes no sense. The same FM file can be included in any
number of books. You update that file, and it's updated in all the books
in which it's included. The files that are needed in both language
versions would be included in both books. (Each book would have its own
condition settings.) 

Conditionalizing an entire FM file (which leaves 2 blank pages for a
2-sided doc with typical pagination settings) strikes me as an ugly
kludge, and inserting some random picture(s) doesn't make it much
prettier. :-}

I don't understand the reluctance to use multiple books. It's really not
difficult: you have a UserGuide-US.book and a UserGuide-UK.book. They
share most of the same .fm files (but each has its own generated files).
They use different conditional text settings and maybe different
variable definitions. 

To produce the UK version: 

1) Open UserGuide-UK.book and select all the files in the book window.
2) Go to View > Show/Hide Conditional Text, and click Set to apply the
settings you previously set up for that book. 
3) If there are variable differences between the books, import the UK
book variables from one of the files that's specific to the UK book
(like a generated file). 
4) Update/generate the book, and you're ready to print/PDF/whatever. 

This isn't rocket science. If you have only one book, you have to do all
the same things listed above -- you just do them twice to the same book.
I have to think that that's more error-prone than having a clearly named
book for each version, which "remembers" its conditional text settings
and stores its variables.

IMHO, YMMV, etc. But really, give it a try. :-)

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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