[Framers] Advice on slimming down a guide; customized guides per customer??

Thu Oct 11 10:11:57 PDT 2018

I use groups and folders to control what modules are included in a book. I include and exclude depending on the type of book I'm producing. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Framers [mailto:framers-bounces+john.x.posada=us.hsbc.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Caroline Tabach
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2018 12:54 PM
To: An email list for people using Adobe FrameMaker software. <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
Subject: Re: [Framers] Advice on slimming down a guide; customized guides per customer??

Can you expand?

Caroline Tabach

בתאריך יום ה׳, 11 באוק׳ 2018, 18:36, מאת ‏<john.x.posada at us.hsbc.com>:

> I use GROUPS and FOLDERS all the time...I couldn't do my work without them.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Framers [mailto:framers-bounces+john.x.posada=
> us.hsbc.com at lists.frameusers.com] On Behalf Of Lin Sims
> Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2018 11:14 AM
> To: Frame Users <framers at lists.frameusers.com>
> Subject: Re: [Framers] Advice on slimming down a guide; customized 
> guides per customer??
>
> Hi Caroline,
>
> I've only played with groups a folders a little, so there's not much I 
> can tell you. I can say that using a folder will change how your 
> headings are numbered, but using a group won't.
>
> On Thu, Oct 11, 2018 at 1:25 AM Caroline Tabach 
> <caroline.tabach at gmail.com
> >
> wrote:
>
> > Lin
> > thanks  for getting back to me.
> >
> > Are there people with experience with groups?
> >
> > I will look up those numbering articles and think about either this 
> > suggestion, or the suggestion of using conditional text.
> >
> > I have to present the ideas to the SMEs next week
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 2:34 PM Lin Sims <ljsims.ml at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > My apologies if this response is late; I've been on vacation.
> > >
> > > Assuming I understand the situation you are describing, I think 
> > > your best choice is number 2. There are a number of good guides 
> > > that describe how
> > to
> > > use FrameMaker's numbering blocks to set up some pretty 
> > > complicated numbering schemes without too much difficulty (I'd 
> > > recommend the ones by Lester Smalley and Dan Emory and I can 
> > > probably dig those up for you if
> > you
> > > can't find them on the web), and once those are set up all you 
> > > have to do is regenerate the book when you go to publish, which 
> > > you'd have to do anyway for the Table of Contents.
> > >
> > > You might also want to look into using Groups, which I believe 
> > > will let
> > you
> > > use individual files (your boxes) as sections of a chapter (your
> > families)
> > > without having to mess too much with the numbering scheme. I 
> > > haven't used Groups, though, so I can't provide too much advice on 
> > > that. The only
> > caveat
> > > here is that each box will start on a new page, because that's how 
> > > FrameMaker handles files collected into a book.
> > >
> > > I do not think text insets is a good choice here, since you would 
> > > have to relink the text insets every time you create a book 
> > > depending on what's used for a particular customer and that could 
> > > get both tedious and error prone depending on how many customers 
> > > you
> have.
> > >
> > > On Mon, Oct 8, 2018 at 8:24 AM Caroline Tabach <
> > caroline.tabach at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi,
> > > >
> > > > I have converted the very large Word user guide to FrameMaker.  
> > > > I am
> > > using
> > > > Unstructured Frame 2017
> > > >
> > > > This is a guide for a product which has general information 
> > > > about how
> > to
> > > > use the product at the beginning, and a few chapters with 
> > > > general information at the end.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > The product is made up of  100 "boxes" which belong to 5 
> > > > families (I
> > am
> > > > just calling them boxes for the sake of the example)
> > > >
> > > > The FrameMaker book I made uses only chapters, not volumes, 
> > > > there is a chapter for each box family, with information about 
> > > > each of the boxes
> > in
> > > > that family.
> > > >
> > > > Each customer only needs to user 4 or 5 "boxes", so we want to 
> > > > make
> > user
> > > > guides that are smaller and more focused
> > > >
> > > > I have made a book with everything in it, and now I want to show 
> > > > the
> > SME
> > > > how we can use Frame to make smaller guides. I am wondering 
> > > > about the
> > > best
> > > > way to do this.
> > > >
> > > > 1. Make 5 books each with one box family in it, which will 
> > > > contain info about all the boxes in that family as well as the 
> > > > general
> information.
> > > end
> > > > users will receive the guide with info about the box family, 
> > > > they will
> > > have
> > > > info about 15 boxes even if they only bought one
> > > >
> > > > 2. Redo the guide that I did and make the box families to be 
> > > > volumes,
> > and
> > > > then each box is a chapter. .
> > > >
> > > > This means it will be easy to add or remove boxes from the 
> > > > guide, this
> > > also
> > > > means it is possible to customize the guides per customers The 
> > > > company are using heading numbering, so this means redoing all 
> > > > of
> > the
> > > > heading of all the paragraph styles, which might get complicated
> > > >
> > > > 3. Another idea I had was to set the book up as described above, 
> > > > with a chapter for each box family, but to have each box as a 
> > > > text inset, and
> > be
> > > > able to create user guides per box. Highly customizing this, but 
> > > > means
> > I
> > > > don't have to mess with the numbering, but maybe this will make 
> > > > life complicated
> > > >
> > > > What would you recommend?
> > > >
> > > > Are there advantages and disadvantages of each method?
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for your ideas
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Caroline Tabach
> > > > Technical/Marcom Writer
> > > > e-mail: caroline.tabach at gmail.com 
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > >
> > > > This message is from the Framers mailing list
> > > >
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> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Lin Sims
> > > _______________________________________________
> > >
> > > This message is from the Framers mailing list
> > >
> > > Send messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com Visit the list's 
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> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Caroline Tabach
> > Technical/Marcom Writer
> > e-mail: caroline.tabach at gmail.com
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > This message is from the Framers mailing list
> >
> > Send messages to framers at lists.frameusers.com
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> >
>
>
> --
> Lin Sims
> _______________________________________________
>
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