Disappearing text in PDF: a weird issue

[Steve Rickaby]

At 16:10 +0200 20/6/12, Yves Barbion wrote:

>10.0.2.419 is the latest patch, so that's OK. Meanwhile, I have done some tests with Fm 10 and earlier versions: 9, 8 and 7.2.

Thanks so much for going to all this trouble.

>It is a weird problem indeed: I got the same result as your colleague when I generated a PDF from Fm 10, 9 and 8 but the PDF from FrameMaker 7 was OK.

...as I found here with 7 for Mac...

> But there is also something strange going on in the file itself. For example, when I change the paratag of the WARNING! in the first table to CellBody, I do see all  the text in the PDF (your colleague may test this as well). I also see all the text in the PDF when I change the paratag of the vanishing paragraph (from CellBody to CellBody - Bold). So, I have been able to fix this problem by applying and renaming the CellBody and CellBody - Bold paratags:
>
>1. Apply CellBody - Bold to the vanishing paragraph.
>2. Rename CellBody - Bold to CellBodyBold.
>3. In the vanishing paragraph, change font weight Bold to Regular and Apply to selection.
>4. In the vanishing paragraph, rename CellBodyBold to Cellbody and Apply to selection.
>5. Rename CellBodyBold to CellBody - Bold again and Update All.
>6. Put the text cursor in the vanishing paragraph and Update All paragraphs tagged CellBody.
>7. Generate PDF: everything OK.
>
>Phew, quite an experience to be back in the unstructured Fm world.

Well, I can assure you that it's not usually *that* much of an experience!

>In DITA, all the author needs to do is insert a <note> element and give it the right @type attribute (caution, warning, tip etc.). All the rest (icons, hazard statements, background shading...) is handled automagically by the transformations and style sheets.

As would happen in any well-formed structured application. I've not used DITA yet (currently sourcing a machine that will run FrameMaker 10), but I have written a structured app from the ground up, and yes, when well constructed, they can save you a load of work and enforce consistency.

Your help is much appreciated, and will be lso by Claire when I pass this on.

-- 
Steve