A confused and frustrated Deirdre Reagan wrote (in part): > 1. If we are crossreferencing back to paragraph tags, and we change > the source paragraph tag, do we have to keep the fat black T? That > seems awfully picky, since we just want to double click the line of > text and type in our new text. To keep the T, we would have to click > and backspace. Plus that T doesn't preceed the original cross > reference. It appears only to indicate that this line of text has > already been cross referenced. So it's absence shouldn't affect FM's > ability to update cross references, right? The key concept is that *all* cross-references are references to cross-reference markers, which show on screen as the same kind of T-shaped symbol as any other marker type (e.g., index entry marker, hypertext marker, conditional text marker). When you create an x-ref, you typically use the list of paragraphs display in the x-ref dialog, but you are *not* referencing a specific paragraph, you are referencing the paragraph where a specific x-ref marker is located. You are *not* referencing a paragraph tag (since that is not a unique entity except in the context of the Paragraph Catalog). You are *not* referencing a variable, or a line, or a paragraph. You are referencing the marker and retrieving information about where it is located (e.g., the text, the autonumbering, the page number). If there is no x-ref marker in the target paragraph you identify when you create an x-ref, FrameMaker automatically creates one for you. Embedded in the marker is a semi-unique ID number plus a snippet of the text from the paragraph which may be useful to you if you later display the list of markers rather than the list of paragraphs of a particular type (but if you change the text of the paragraph, the text in the marker does not update to match, so it really isn't as useful as you would think). What confuses a lot of FrameMaker users is the Paragraphs display in the x-ref dialog. They think that because they picked a paragraph to target with an x-ref, they have done something fundamentally different than if they had picked an item from the Markers list. The Paragraphs list is just a convenient way for writers to identify the place they want to refer to based on its tagging and content and to automatically create an x-ref marker if one is needed. Once they've identifed the location and there is an x-ref marker there, the x-ref works just like every other x-ref--it points to an x-ref marker with a particular ID in a particfular file. In other words, the Paragraphs display is only an alternative UI into the exact same mechanism. The ID number embedded in the x-ref marker (the T) at the target end of a cross-reference is the key to the whole x-ref mechanism. At the referencing location (where the text will appear), FrameMaker embeds some code that identifies the marker ID, the filename and relative path of the file that contains the marker, and information on what information to extract from the target paragraph and how to display it. Whenever you open the file that contains the x-ref, FrameMaker silently opens the file that is identified in the x-ref, looks for the marker by ID, and updates the result in the referring document. If it can't find the file, or if it can't open the file, or if it can't find the marker with the specified ID when it searches the file, you get the dreaded "unresolvced cross-reference" message. When you delete the x-ref marker on your title page, you make every reference that points to it becoime unresolved. > 2. What was the original writer doing, making this line of text a > paragraph tag and not a variable, like every other line of text on the > page? Is there a good reason for this? (Probably a rhetorical > question, but I thought I'd throw it out there, in case there is > something everyone but me knows.) You don't "make a line of text a paragraph tag". A paragraph tag is a *property* or attribute that is applied to each and every paragraph in a document to identify the formatting that will be applied to the paragraph when it is rendered. I guess what you're asking is why the writer entered this text string as regular text instead of as a variable. But if you're consistently using the cross-reference mechanism to pull title page information into all of the component files I think the real question is why you are using variables at all, since it is simply an unnecessary step. If everything is entered and handled as a variable, then once you import the variable definitions from the title page into all the component files you can reference the variables locally and never have to use a cross-reference. You can accomplish the appearance of the same result either way, but it seems to me that using the two mechanisms interchangeably in the same book has no benefit and only causes confusion among users and potential maintenance issues. > 3. Shouldn't I get rid of all these cross references and change them > all to variables? That way I can update the variable once and it > changes everywhere and there are no fat black Ts to worry about and no > broken cross references for me to get super frustrated over. Or would > I have to change the variable in each individual chapter? In line with my preceding mini-rant, my advice would be to get rid of the cross-references and use variables instead. Updating will become a two-step process--first update the variables in the title page file, then import the variable difinitions into all the component files--but you'll avoid unresolved cross-reference issues, and you won't create dozens (or hundreds) of useless hyperlinks that will only take the reader to the title page if followed. What you will have to do to make the transition, though, is edit each chapter to change the inter-file x-refs (pointing to the title page file) into to local user variable references. -FR _______________________________________________
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