Relative Path for Images Changed to Absolute

[Wei Jiang (PT_CN)]

Dear Alison,

 

I had met similar problems 10 years ago, when I started translating and
typesetting FM documents. There was/is not a short-cut solution to the
problems. But the lessons that I learned are:

 

1.       Never change the relative path info in the FM files. Be careful of
your fingers when you are prompted to locate the missing images, say when
you need to re-save FM documents into MIF, to be processed by a CAT tool.
Just consistently ignore and never redirect! Actually there are
tools/scripts out there which can automatically re-save every FM in a  book,
or in a folder (and its subfolders) while keeping the original linking info
intact.

2.       Just in case that the path info has been changed, say from relative
paths to absolute paths, which is your case, I am sure you can still change
them back, in a dirty, quick way. First, you need to save all FM files into
MIF. Then you can use a search-and-replace tool that supports
wildcards/regular expressions, such as the legendary UltraEditor - just
replace the "c:\folder\subfolers\" stuff with "..\..\" - of course the
strings look differently in the MIF, but this is a just a quick example. And
finally, you resave all MIF's back to FM's. Actually, I have been thinking
about creating a tool to streamline this whole process, though I personally
do not need it, as I had learned my lesson, and I have had my associates
learn it too.

 

But, before you try the above, you must ensure that the path info in our FM
files have REALLY been changed. Actually, if  the files are saved in the
root directory of your disk, say "c:\", then when opening them, FrameMaker
may try locating the linked image files in "c:\", not in their relative
path. So, I would suggest that you copy your FM files into a folder that is
"deep" enough, and see if FrameMaker will suggest relative paths when
opening them.

 

Kindest regards,

 

Wei Jiang
Senior Chinese Translator, 
Project Manager of Multilingual Localization Projects
Beijing, China

 

 

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com
[mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Alison Craig
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2011 5:15 AM
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: Relative Path for Images Changed to Absolute

 

FM 9 Version: 9.0p255

Unstructured

OS: Windows 7, 64 bit (brand new machine)

 

After several problems, I've finally received a set of newly translated
Simplified Chinese files back from the (new to me) LSP. Due to budgetary
consideration, I always perform final DTP on the book before I publish to
PDF.

 

My problem is that every single image (all imported by reference) has had
the relative path changed to an absolute path and I have to re-link every
one of them when I open each file (some files have hundreds of images as I
use icons in instructions to match the proprietary console on our ultrasound
machines).

 

In a perfect world I would return this to the LSP and have them fix it, but
these manuals are already behind schedule. I have searched the last 2 years
of list posting and cannot find the specific answer I am looking for.

 

Is there someplace I can change the absolute path back to the relative path?
Even if I have to make the change once for every file in the book that would
still only be 5 minutes work instead of hours and hours of work.

 

FYI: I will be working with the LSP to ensure this problem doesn't happen
again.

 

Alison

 


Alison Craig, Technical Writer

Ultrasonix Medical Corporation

Tel: (604) 279-8550, ext 127

E-mail:  <mailto:alison.craig at ultrasonix.com> alison.craig at ultrasonix.com

 

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