Cross-reference to a previous file

[David Artman]

|From: Lin Sims <ljsims.ml at gmail.com>
|Date: Tue, December 11, 2012 8:20 pm
|
|Where I work, we have a sort-of-similar issue, and we solved it by
|using cross-references. It means you'll have to remember to check that
|you're pointing to the right files if you add any new ones in, but it
|beats typing everything in (and you'd have to manually update that
|way, too).

Lin, wouldn't that make it into a link, after PDFing? I'm assuming that
one wants other xrefs to be live links and so one leaves that option
checked in PDF Settings. If xrefs aren't automatically being made into
links, that would work fine.

Roger, can't you use the Volume value at the book level on the files(s)
and then use that building block in the H/F? Or have you already used
that building block for other purposes?

As a final, hacky solution, you could make a super-stripped file (I use
MIF editing to kill, like, EVERY catalog I can) and then have one of
those files for each part, in which you define a Variable to carry the
H/F text? That way, you could still use book-wide variables (in another
blank file or in your main template) to apply "major" Variables and the
part-level blank file to apply "minor" variables afterwards. Kind of
manual, but not nearly so much as other methods.

[I don't have/use FM9+, but it seems like setting the parts up as
books-in-a-book would let you access other Numbering properties
(Section, Sub-Section). So your 'part' text would be the "Chapter"
values--with their para styles handling numbering via autonumbering--and
then "Section" would handle your 'chapter' numbering in the
book-in-book.]

HTH;
David