Relative vs. absolute links

[Reng, Dr. Winfried]

Hi Alison,

I would ask your translation agency what they exactly do
with your FrameMaker and graphics files. If they store the
graphics files on another drive, the paths become absolute.
That should not happen.
The agency should use the very same directory structure as
you have.

Best regards

Winfried

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Alison Craig
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 8:06 PM
To: Paul Wilbraham; 'framers at lists.frameusers.com'; Harvey, Peggy
Subject: RE: Relative vs. absolute links

I would agree, as when I send the files out – all on the same drive – everything works fine with relative paths.

But when they come back – still all on the same drive – they are returned with absolute paths.

That’s my dilemma. The relative positions of the files don’t change – but the paths become absolute anyway.

Note that while my version control database is on a network drive, all files are checked out to a local drive when they are being worked on, so there is no network issue, at least on my end.

Alison

From: Paul Wilbraham [mailto:paul.wilbraham at m-ais.com]
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 10:30 AM
To: Alison Craig; 'framers at lists.frameusers.com'; Harvey, Peggy
Subject: RE: Relative vs. absolute links

Alison
We find that graphics on the same drive as the original files are relative. Graphics on a separate drive are absolute.

--Paul
On 27 February 2013 at 18:09 Alison Craig <Alison.Craig at ultrasonix.com<mailto:Alison.Craig at ultrasonix.com>> wrote:
I’d love to hear an explanation as I often have the same relative/absolute issue with graphics and xrefs when my files are returned from the translators.

Although in my case, everything is done in FM 9 or with the MIF 9 format – so my issue has nothing to do with Frame versioning.

Alison

PS: All FM files used to create the Book are in a single folder with graphics in a series of subfolders.

From: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com<mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com> [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Harvey, Peggy
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 7:41 AM
To: 'framers at lists.frameusers.com'
Subject: Relative vs. absolute links

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

________________________________

This e-mail contains privileged and confidential information intended for the use of the addressees named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this e-mail, you are hereby notified that you must not disseminate, copy or take any action in respect of any information contained in it. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by e-mail and immediately destroy this e-mail and its attachments.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20130228/8deffc12/attachment.htm>