[Framers] Section Numbers and Generated Files

[Oran Petersen]

Adobe unwisely hooked up the "new" SectionNumber and Sub-SectionNumber variables to the 'new at the time' Hierarchical books functionality. This goes back to version 8 or 9. To use SectionNumber variables you must nest the "Section" files as children of the Chapter file(s) in the book.
In our implementation and for many others, we cannot use these layered books, making the variables worthless to us.

For the past 15 years or so we have used the "VolumeNumber" variable to implement the Section numbers. It does not have this stupid nested book hookup and will work just fine in an un-nested book. Just use <$volnum> in your generated files reference page in place of the <$sectionunm> and you are done.

Remember, ChapterNumber, SectionNumber, Sub-SectionNumber  and VolumeNumber variables are designed to control page number sequencing in files within a FrameMaker book. To autostep numbering within a file you use the paragraph autonumbering functions.

So if you want a file for each chapter and section, and if you nest the section files in a folder in each chapter as desired in your book, the SectionNumber variable will work as you wish.

The VolumeNumber variable has the same rules (unique file in a book for a given Chapter/Section (volnum) except that you do not need to use a nested book. Just be sure to set each file in the book under Format-Document-Numbering and do a book update to see the results of your work.

If you have questions, email me directly
Oran Petersen