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

[Robert Lauriston]

I thought you were talking about separate .fm files for ease of
generating separate PDFs.

Otherwise, individual .fm files for each chapter seem to me like a
relic of the days when computers didn't have enough memory to handle a
whole book.

If you have to embed the graphics, that might be a special case for
multiple .fm files.

On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 12:42 PM, Lin Sims <ljsims.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
> The book PDFs usually run in the 3-10MB range. Individual chapters in FM
> format can run up to 30MB or more. And as Rick said, we're talking about a
> single FM file per chapter in a book, then generating a single PDF for the
> book, not separate PDFs for each chapter.
>
> (I wish we could reference images, but we've got an "interesting" hybrid
> setup that also involves a content management system, and the unstructured
> FM users have to embed the graphics.)
>
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 2:43 PM, Robert Lauriston <robert at lauriston.com>
> wrote:
>>
>> I always do one file, unless it gets so big that there are download
>> problems. Then everything can be cross-referenced. You can have
>> cross-PDF links, but they're more problematic. As a user, I always
>> find it frustrating when large documents are split up.
>>
>> How big is the file if you generate one big PDF for the book?
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 7, 2016 at 10:46 AM, 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).