Is there a way to select or delete specific conditional text?

Tue Feb 26 14:16:07 PST 2013

Thanks, Gary, for sharing this important note about your experience regarding conditional text. I have passed your, and everyone else's info, to the appropriate personnel here.

Thanks again and I will make sure they make copies before attempting to delete anything.

Thanks again,
Jaime

From: Zimmerman, Gary [mailto:Gary.Zimmerman at Teradata.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 4:58 PM
To: Bernard Aschwanden (Publishing Smarter); Jaime Zuniga; framers at lists.frameusers.com
Subject: RE: Is there a way to select or delete specific conditional text?

> MASSIVE WARNING: Read this first, and have a backup of your original

> materials. If changes are made and files saved there is ZERO

> recovery or undo for this.

I want to second Bernard's MASSIVE WARNING.

Bernard also wrote:

> If you need to remove the condition,

> delete the tag (and you can then also delete the content).

I used this technique a while back in FM7 to remove some obsolete conditions that still had instances of hidden, but unneeded text.  I deleted the conditions, one by one, and answered the FM prompt dialog by allowing it to delete all the associated conditional text.

After saving the document, it was no longer openable At All.  Trying to open the doc, I received an instant FM error - one of those oh-so-informative dialogs with lots of cryptic error numbers, none of which yielded anything useful when I searched for them in the Adobe knowledge base.

Luckily, I did have a backup of the document.  We use structured FM.  I experimented with copies of the original doc a while to try to figure out what was going on.  It turned out that after I deleted one particular condition, allowing FM to delete the associated text, the structure entirely disappeared from the structure window!  After that... the document was dead.  Oh I could see it and change it and save it, but after I closed it, reopening it would instantly crash FM.  No recovery possible at that point - no MIF wash possible or anything.

I'm guessing that some hidden para or bit somewhere that was critical to the validity of the document or the binary integrity of the file had been somehow tagged with that condition, and when I deleted it, the doc became an invalid file.  I worked around the problem by displaying all the text symbols and conditional text with indicators.  Then I searched for instances the condition I wanted to delete, and deleted them one by one, watching the structure view after each deletion.  Under those circumstances, none of the individual deletions caused the structure to disappear.

I believe, but can't be certain because it was so long ago, that one of the instances of the deleted condition occurred at the end of the document.  Perhaps some important formatting or structure information was contained in the final para or closing hidden symbol of the file that the find/delete removed to kill the document.

But the moral of this shaggy dog story is:

> MASSIVE WARNING: ...have a backup of your original materials.

Always.

-- garyZ

> -----Original Message-----

> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-

> bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:bounces at lists.frameusers.com>] On Behalf Of Bernard Aschwanden (Publishing

> Smarter)

> Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2013 5:07 AM

> To: 'Jaime Zuniga'; framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>

> Subject: RE: Is there a way to select or delete specific conditional text?

>

> MASSIVE WARNING: Read this first, and have a backup of your original

> materials. If changes are made and files saved there is ZERO

> recovery or undo for this.

>

>

>

> On a book or a single document, after showing the conditions:

>

> 1. Edit > Find/Change

> 2. Select Conditional Text from the drop down

> 3. Set the dialog as needed

> 4. Under Change, select "Text"

> 5. Do NOT put any content into the space below it (that is, leave the text

> to replace with as blank)

> 6. Click Find

> 7. Click Change and review the results

> 8. If you are happy with this, use Change All

>

> A few quick notes as well. This removes the content, not the condition. If

> you need to remove the condition, delete the tag (and you

> can then also delete the content). However, the method I have is very

> quick to apply, even across a book.

>

>

> Hope that helps,

>

> Bernard

>

>

> Bernard Aschwanden

>

> Owner/Operator

> Publishing Smarter

> www.publishingsmarter.com<http://www.publishingsmarter.com>

> Write Less. Write Better.

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>

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> Society for Technical Communication

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>

> Home: (905) 833 8448

>

>

>

>

> -----Original Message-----

> From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com>

> bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com>] On Behalf Of Jaime Zuniga

> Sent: February-25-13 17:19

> To: framers at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers at lists.frameusers.com>

> Subject: Is there a way to select or delete specific conditional text?

>

> Hi,

>

>

>

> Is there a way to select or delete specific conditional text? I have an FM

> 10 file with conditional text, which is getting imported

> into my translations program. I am looking for a way to delete that text

> prior to importing for translation.

>

>

>

> Thanks,

>

> Jaime

>

>

>

>

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