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March 3, 2014
Question

FM12: Conditional text and Publish to Microsoft HTML Help

  • March 3, 2014
  • 2 replies
  • 1645 views

I have downloaded and installed the trial version of FrameMaker 12 to test the new publishing capability. My test document has five conditions, including one I would apply to paragraphs that anchor graphics frames.

When I hide all conditional text, either by moving all conditions to the Hide text box or by applying the expression:

     not "Condition1" and not ( "Condition2" or "Condition3" or "Condition4" or "Condition5")

and then "Publish" to Microsoft HTML Help, the resulting help file still shows the paragraphs I want hidden. The same thing happens if I select WebHelp.

What step am I missing?

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

March 5, 2014

Arnis,

I found the sample file you used, applied conditions to some of the text, and hid all conditional text. My results were similar to yours.

Then I tried my sample file with the default settings file, and hidden conditional text stayed hidden.

Next, I tried my sample file with my pagination.sts, which starts a new topic at each heading. Hidden conditional text stayed hidden.

Finally I tried my sample file with my template.sts, my first attempt at changing the typeface, margins, etc. for help. This time hidden conditional text appears in the .chm file (doesn't stay hidden).

I'm not sure how much more of my time I can justify trying to get this method of single sourcing to work.

Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
March 5, 2014

This sounds like you may have stumbled into a bug with the sts files (these are simply zip containers that hold all of the individual settings files). Can you narrow down what the difference in the settings are between the sts file where the conditions work and where they don't?

March 5, 2014
  • defaultSettings.sts contains 121 files, 1264KB.
  • pagination.sts contains 122 files, 6896KB. The additional file is <test document name>.tmpt.
  • templates.sts contains 120 files, 6865KB. It has the <test document name>.tmpt file but two files (RoboHHRE.lng and System.stp), which are in the first two .sts files, are not in this one.
Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
March 3, 2014

Are your condiitons behaving as expected in FM12? I just tried to duplicate this and it's all behaving for me.

FM sample with conditions:

CHM with two conditions applied to hide the highlighted table rows and paragraph with yellow background (using all defaults with no modifications to the settings file):

The arrows point to where the hidden conditionals are, and they're not showing up for me.

Perhaps try a simpler conditional case first and also detail the steps that you are taking for "publishing" the results.