Okay, open mouth and insert foot. I know they are different, but I made a
sloppy jump in logic and communication. Still have not grown out of that
habit. : ) I was thinking that a cross reference might solve a problem that
I have with text insets. I will open that in another thread.
Nancy Carpenter
Lead Technical Writer
GENCO Distribution System
100 Papercraft Park
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15238
Fred Ridder
[EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
com cc:
Subject: Re: Variables vs
Cross-references vs Text Insets [WAS: HidingPages?]
06/09/2006 11:23
AM
Umm, I think you're comingling two different things. Text insets
(content inserted by reference) are quite different than
cross-references. Eric was talking about cross-references, but
in your reply you seem to be talking about text insets although
you use both terms.
Text insets are used to import the content of a named text flow,
usually in a separate, external file. There is no limit to the size of
text insets; they can be as small as a single word, if that is all that
is contained in the referenced flow (although in this case you
have to remember to choose the Insert as Plain Text option) or
can be as large as hundreds of pages.
Cross-references generate a text string in the local document
based on the location of a cross-reference marker that exists in
some FrameMaker document (either the current file or a separate
one). The content of the text string can br defined in the cross-
reference format, and can inlcude literal text as well as picking
up various properties rlated to the marker, such as the page
number of the page where it's located, all or part of any
auto-numbering that is applied to the paragraph containing the
marker, or the text of the paragraph itself. There is no possibility
for a cross-reference to pick up more than a single paragraph's
contents (the paragraph where the marker is located) although
there is no real limit on how big that single paragraph can be.
Fred Ridder
Intel
Parsippany, NJ
From: nancy carpenter [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: framers@frameusers.com
Subject: Re: Variables vs Cross-references vs Text Insets [WAS:
HidingPages?]
Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 10:39:11 -0400
This might work better than text insets. I use text insets for
definitions
of fields on screens and for introductory paragraphs that are used in more
than one chapter. Is there a limit to how much text you can insert with a
cross reference? My introductions often are two or three paragraphs.
Nancy Carpenter
Lead Technical Writer
GENCO Distribution System
100 Papercraft Park
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15238
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| To: Ridder, Fred [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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| Subject: Variables vs Cross-references [WAS: Hiding Pages?]
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Ridder, Fred [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote on 06/08/2006 11:57:39 AM:
In a situation where only the name changes, I find that it is *much*
more maintainable to use a variable for the product name because
you only have to make a change in one place (the variable's value
definition) when one of the names changes or when a new variant
is added to the list.
Personally, I don't like conditional text. Usually it gets far too complex
very quickly and you're hobbled by the limitation of OR logic for
overlapping conditions.
But, are variables the right answer? Why not Xrefs instead?
Perhaps this idea isn't terribly Earth shattering, but it came to me in a
flash and I've been using it successfully for some time now. The idea
