One problem down, one new one comes up

[Ken Poshedly]

Thanks to all who contributed suggestions to me regarding the problem I had with page numbers for a TOC I was producing.

The problem was that no matter what I did, a preceding hyphen (dash, whatever) appeared with the numerical page number digit.

Apparently, the problem was caused by a glitch. For instance, in the TOC I was working on, the variable definition for current page number is shown as <$curpagenum> with no hyphen included, yet a hyphen always preceded the numerical digit.

I followed suggestions from you guys to import the format of another TOC instead of using the format of my body chapters. It worked. 

Note that now the variable definition for current page number is still shown as <$curpagenum> with no hyphen, and NO hyphen precedes the numerical digit.

Go figure.

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New head-scratcher. But first -- Windows Vista platform with Adobe FrameMaker 8.0 and Adobe Acrobat Professional 9.0.

Unfortunately, the English-language source materials I get from our home office in China are pdf files produced by third parties; the culture there allows the third party to keep all native files and deliver ONLY the pdf files (and maybe printed copies if so stipulated). This is akin to wedding photographers here retaining possession of their negatives (are they still used?) but deliver only a nice album with prints.

The only times I've been able to somehow get an English-language Word file was apparently before the project was jobbed out, so the subsequent pdf file I might get is markedly different.

As usual, I've inherited a white elephant, specifically this time a 416-page pdf parts book which I need to heavily edit into the format used we use here at the U.S. offices of the home company. The problem is that the pdf file was created in China to somehow partially (note the word "partially") prevent one from "saving as" or exporting any of the pages into Word or rtf pages that can be imported into FrameMaker and then massaged via FrameMaker's Table Designer into the approved table format I need. And yes, I've tried the Acrobat OCR tool with no success.

Might anyone here want to take a stab at it to see what -- if any -- success can be obtained?

Write or phone if you have a few minutes for this.

-- Kenpo in Atlanta
678-516-1366