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Can the first paragraph within a FrameMaker File change depending on which book references it?

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
December 5, 2023
3 replies
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Hello,

I work alot in Unstructured FrameMaker with differerent types of books which reference a single file.

For example: I have a procedure file 'Powering up the tool'.

When referenced by the Owners manual, I need it to use the Subsection 2 paragraph like this:

3.2.1 Powering Up the Tool.

When referenced by a Training manual, I need it to use the Subsection 1 paragraph like this:

3.2 Powering Up the Tool.

Is this possible?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer Winfried Reng

No. Unstructured FrameMaker cannot change the paragraph format depending on the context. But you could create two paragraphs with the same content and different paragraph formats. Then apply different conditions and show and hide only what you need.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

Have you considered using a text inset for just the content, but not the heading? That would allow you to set numbering and titles as needed, but still have reused content for the section.

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant

C

CORY239498565lbcAuthor

Participant

This is an interesting idea, but sometimes I send the procedure out to an individual by itself and it needs to have a title. The conditional text seems to work for me. I just needed Winfired Reng to help me blow the cobwebs on my memory banks.

Thanks

W

Winfried Reng

Community Expert

Hi,

There are two conditional text pods, Conditional tags to maintain the tags and Show/Hide Conditional Text to set which tag should be shown or hidden.

Make a copy of your heading paragraphand assign the two paragraph formats which you want to use.

Create two tags, e.g. training and manual.

Select one of the paragraphs and assign e.g. the training tag (CTRL+4). Select the other paragraph and assign the manual tag.

Then use the Show/Hide Conditional Text pod to show or hide the paragraphs.

You can look up everything in the online help.

https://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/using-framemaker/fm-17/user-guide/frm_single_sourcing-conditional-text.html

If you need more help, then just ask.

Best regards, Winfried

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

If the number is the only thing that changes, then a text inset could use a paragraph that is defined differently in different books.

Technically, this means that in the Owners Manual, you could define the heading autonumber as X.X.X and in the Training Manual you could define the heading autonumber as X.X. (not that I'd recommend that...)

If using DITA, the nesting of the topics in the ditamap would create this numbering automatically when publishing various combinations of topics.

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant

C

CORY239498565lbcAuthor

Participant

Thank you for the reply,

This idea doesn't work for me though. I keep the paragraph and character definitions the same among every file I generate which makes it easier for me in the long run.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

Yes, putting the heading with a para tag in the inset will (rightly) maintain the consistent numbering scheme.

The trick is to remove the context from the inset, at least in an unstructured environment.

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant

W

Winfried Reng

Correct answer

Community Expert

No. Unstructured FrameMaker cannot change the paragraph format depending on the context. But you could create two paragraphs with the same content and different paragraph formats. Then apply different conditions and show and hide only what you need.