[Framers] "Secret" Freeze Pagination Feature

[Peter Gold]

Ian, thanks for mentioning List of Effective Pages. A search for Framemaker
LEP turned up a number of references that folks might find useful.

HTH

On Wed, Apr 26, 2017 at 7:13 AM, Ian Proudfoot <ian.proudfoot at itp-x.co.uk>
wrote:

> Hi Stefan,
> Yes I tried to use the feature, but it's lack of support for structured
> documents made it useless for my applications. Here are my thoughts on
> where
> the need came from and why it's still needed...
>
> Much of my work is in aerospace and defence where the distribution of paper
> documents is (or was) a massive undertaking.
>
> I used to be the tech pubs manager for the General Aviation aircraft
> manufacturer Britten-Norman Ltd. We had about 1200 aircraft in service and
> had a legal obligation to provide regular updates to the thousands of pages
> of maintenance and flight operations documents. We had our own printing
> company but there was a massive cost associated with printing and
> distribution of revised content to all parts of the world.
>
> The only realistic way to achieve this was to only print "revision
> packages"
> in loose-leaf format. FrameMaker 5.0 was the software that I chose to
> overhaul our archaic production system. One of the attractive features was
> Freeze "pagination" which was due to be 'improved' or so I was promised by
> Frame Technology! I really wanted to use Interleaf which did a much better
> job in this area, however only FrameMaker was affordable.
>
> I tried to convert an existing manual to FrameMaker with Freeze Pagination
> for revision packages, but it was cumbersome and lacked the ability to
> match
> our existing page numbering scheme. When we implemented SGML we had to
> abandon any attempt to automate this feature.
>
> A switch to the new S1000D specification provided a suitable way forward
> that provided an efficient, modular way to deliver revision packages that
> could avoid the horrors of page Freeze Pagination. DITA followed S1000D
> with
> a similar modular concept. I wouldn't volunteer to go back to the old ways!
>
> Since that time I have developed FrameMaker applications for my clients
> that
> have implemented pagination management for loose-leaf specifications, but
> never using the built-in FrameMaker features, it has to be FDK,
> ExtendScript
> or FrameScript. In the structured world this has become more difficult
> since
> the move from SGML to XML. The good thing about FrameMaker is that you can
> still use those SGML features in the FM environment then saving as XML
> giving the best of both worlds.
>
> Please don't remove the Freeze Pagination feature, but explain how to use
> it
> and its limitations. If it is considered a worthwhile development, please
> give us a version that works with structured documents and can generate a
> List of Effective Pages too.
>
> Sorry to ramble on.
> Ian
>
>
> iTP-X
> Bembridge
> Isle of Wight
> United Kingdom
>
>