Question about flow and background text frames

[Matt Sullivan]

To add to Richard's excellent summary of why you can't do what you want the
way you want...

I recommend the following to students and template dev clients to ensure
ease of use and consistency in headings like TOC and IX:

Set the autonumbering of your TOC_Title paragraph tag to display the phrase
Table of Contents. Do the same for any other generated TOC or IX. 

You'll still have to add it manually, but it'll be consistent, and will show
in your TOC (as long as you define the TOC so that you display the
<$paranum> instead of the <$paratext> building block.


-Matt

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Matt Sullivan
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-----Original Message-----
From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Combs, Richard
Sent: Friday, May 07, 2010 12:35 PM
To: 'Andy Kass'; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: Question about flow and background text frames

Andy Kass wrote:
 
> I'm working on templates and having an issue with background text frames.
> What I'd like is for the Glossary and Index template files to have 
> permanent headings, that is cannot be edited on the body pages.
> 
> After reading the help, it sounds like I need to put the heading in a 
> background text frame on a First master page. But to make a background 
> text frame, it must be untagged and unconnected, which means the 
> heading it contains no longer shows up in my Table of Contents.
> 
> Does anyone know a workaround or another way to achieve this?

The primary purpose of background text frames is to hold text that repeats
on multiple pages -- yes, you may have a First master page that occurs only
once per file, but it's the exception that proves the rule. :-) 

The functionality you'd like really can't be made to exist without
significant change in how FM works. 

A TOC consists of hypertext links (go to markers) to specific points in the
flow (destination markers). If the destination marker were on the master
page, how would the link work? FM would have to somehow replicate that
destination marker on each body page (floating on the page somewhere, since
there's no text location for it) where the background text appeared. 

If there were more than one such body page, which one would the link in the
TOC point to? FM would then have to make each replicated marker unique so
that each link pointed to a unique destination. 

The "workaround" is to put the heading in the main flow at the top of the
first body page. And then don't edit it. It's only going to change if
someone consciously edits the text. Is it really that hard for you and/or
your co-workers to refrain from doing that? :-) 


Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
------






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