Relative vs. absolute links

[Harvey, Peggy]

Hi Framers,

FM 9 p 237 and FM 7 p576

Situation: Converting files between FM 7 and FM 9. All links and file references are relative when I start but appear to become absolute when I convert either way.

I need to share files with a coworker at another site. I have FM 9 and he has FM 7. The files, including the book file, are always all in a single directory with a "Graphics" subdirectory for all graphics.

Here's the sequence of events:

1) The files were originally in FM 7. (When I inherited them, at least.) I put them on a network drive in that form, without converting them to FM 9.
2) My coworker edited the files, then put them back on the network drive so I could do some clean up work on them. I moved them to a different network drive to do the work.
3) I opened all of the files in FM 9, therefore converting them to FM 9 format. I did my cleanup, including fixing the graphics path to the "Graphics" subfolder and fixing cross-reference links that were broken. In retrospect I believe cross-references within the same file were okay but cross-references between files were all broken.
4) When I finished my work I saved each individual file and the book file in MIF 7.0 format. I saved the MIF files in a different folder than the FM 9 files and copied the "Graphics" directory to the same folder as the MIF files.
5) I opened each MIF file and the MIF book file in FM 7, then saved each one in .fm (or .book) format.
6) I noticed that the book file seemed to be referring to the the previous files - the FM 9 files with the same names in the different folder. I deleted all of the file references and added all of the FM 7 files that I'd just created. So the FM 7 book file and individual files were all in the same folder.
6) When I went to generate the book I got an error log that all of the cross-references I'd fixed in FM 9 were unresolved again. Upon further inspection I discovered all of the graphics had the wrong path, too - they were linked absolutely to the "Graphics" folder in my FM 9 folder, not to the relative "Graphics" folder I'd copied to the FM 7 folder.

My question: Why are the links and references to files (graphics and cross-references) changing from relative to absolute paths when I convert from one version to another? At least that's what seems to be happening, either when I open FM 7 files directly in FM 9 or when I go through the MIF to convert from FM 9 back to FM 7. Anyone have any insight to this?

FYI: Our final solution is we're STRONGLY recommending my coworker upgrade to FM 9 as soon as possible. I'm hoping he'll be able to even though Adobe is on FM 11 now. I've seen the traffic on the list about FM 11; I have no desire to update to it at this time so I'm hoping he doesn't have to, either.

Thanks,

Peggy
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20130227/3a810021/attachment.htm>