[Framers] Pros/Cons: Separate file per chapter, or one REALLY BIG FILE for an entire book

[Ken Poshedly]

Lin,

We also use unstructured FM11.0 to produce files that are distilled down to pdf files for hard copy printing (and maybe distribution on CD, but not so much).
As such, we compile separate chapter files then assemble them into a final book in FM.
Much more manageable that way (at least for us). A former so-called tech writer here (who wound up being our not-so-loved manager before finally being let go) forced FM to do what he wanted it to do, with humongous files resulting that crashed and burned at least half the time. A normal chapter file might be 3 or 4 mb, but his sometimes got into the gigabyte range. Didn't care, didn't change, and caused the rest of us lots of problems when trying to open his files or even p-a-g-e through them (it took maybe an hour to work one's way through a 50 or 60-page file). We're now much better off, referencing and not embedding our graphics. Hint: take any photo produced with a digital camera from its 60 x 60 inch (or whatever) original size and resample it down to maybe 8 x 10 and oh, how life in tech pubs-land is so much better.

So in the end, don't do the whole book as one file. Use chapters as separate files (even with all the stuff you mentioned), then combine them into one book afterwards.

And yes, while the rest of the world goes on to DITA, etc, we continue to "bring up the rear".
-- Ken in Atlanta 

    On Monday, November 7, 2016 1:46 PM, Lin Sims <ljsims.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
 

 Pretty much what it says in the title. I'm guessing there have been
discussions about this in the past, and I plan to look for those, but I
thought I'd toss this out there anyway.

We're talking chapters that can run a couple hundred (or more) pages loaded
with tables, graphics, and conditional text so that they can be used to
single-source multiple documents (no, don't talk to me about DITA, my
non-tech-writing boss wants it in unstructured).

-- 
Lin Sims
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