Frame Characters -- Search and Replace

[Pinkham, Jim]

Ah, let me clarify:

In my normal manuals, we have a chapter containing OSHA safety
resources, and various x-refs within the other chapters point to it.
In my Mexican manuals, the "Regional Safety References" chapter alludes
to Mexican "normas," and the other chapters have x-refs to those Mexican
safety regs listed there.

So, for instance, the Replace Group would include the following:

OSHA Crane Safety Quick Card
Equipo suspendido de acceso

The find-and-replace looks for all of the x-ref markers to OSHA crane
safety and replaces them with x-refs to "Equipo suspendido".

When I work on a manual going to Mexico, I pull out the standard U.S.
Ch. 12 and put the standard MX Ch. 12 into the book instead. When I do
this, the x-refs in Ch. 2, for instance, are broken because they're
looking for the normal OSHA refs in Ch. 12. 

Perhaps I've been complicating my life unnecessarily, but what I've been
doing, as I come to an x-ref in Ch. 2 that would normally point to an
item in the U.S. Ch. 12, is change it to the appropriate Spanish x-ref
for the Mexican Ch. 12. Automating that process of fixing the x-refs to
point to the appropriate resource seems like a more sensible way to go.

So the problem is that the replaced x-refs have the aformentioned font
issue when opened in FM 9.

Does that make things clearer?

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Combs, Richard [mailto:richard.combs at Polycom.com] 
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 3:00 PM
To: Pinkham, Jim; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: Frame Characters -- Search and Replace

Pinkham, Jim wrote:
 
> I'm trying to simplify conversion of some x-refs in a manual going to 
> Mexico. If it works well, I'll be using this conversion fairly often.
> I'm using ReplaceText 2.2 (formerly "BK ReplaceEm") to work on MIF 
> files exported from FM 9.

I don't know about other list members (many of whom are more qualified
to address your issue), but I don't understand what you mean by
"simplify conversion of some x-refs in a manual going to Mexico." My
experience with translations/localizations is rather limited, but I know
of no reason why one would need to "convert" (whatever that means) FM's
xrefs. Or manipulate the translated docs outside of FM. 

If the destination text for an xref is translated, the xref will resolve
to (and thus display, if the $paratext building block is used) the
translated text. Unless the translators messed with the xref markers
(which they certainly shouldn't). 

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding you, and it makes sense to other list
members -- but the lack of any immediate response makes me think perhaps
not. :-} 

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