Participating Frequently

Question

Revised pages

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
August 15, 2011
2 replies
860 views

I've been tasked with converting our very large manuals into FrameMaker.

FM8, Windows 7

Currently, our manuals include a revision date in the corner of every single page. For example, we might implement a "running" change on a daily basis, so, each page of a 50-page chapter could have a different revision date (hypothetically).

I haven't figured out how to efficiently do this in FrameMaker without creating a text box on every body page and manually type the date (which is what we do currently in our old software). Maybe it's the best way, I just want to be sure.

I've seen the LEP plug-in from Silicon Prairie but not sure if the dates actually print on the page or if it is a "background" mark-up tool?

What do other companies do?

Thanks in advance!

This topic has been closed for replies.

A

Anonymous

As I'm sure you know, one of the biggest questions to be careful about is be certain what needs to happen to the page numbering and revision date when content is later added or removed.

So, for example, if page "4" starts life as revision date "1/1/11" but then more content is added on page 3. Is "point page" "3a" supposed to be added? If so, does it take on the same revision date as page 3?

Knowing how that is supposed to happen will have a big effect on how you choose to (or are forced to) maintain your docs.

In your existing documents, do you keep each page as a separate file, or does it have a built-in way to deal with point page changes as the content shrinks/grows?

How critical is it that every miniscule change is noted, e.g. if you corrected a typo would that have to change the revision date, or is a revision date change reserved for content changes?

Do you produce lists like a TOC list showing the revision dates of the pages? Or a list of changed pages within a certain time period, perhaps showing old date vs new date, or ... ?

too-2Author

Participating Frequently

Hi Sheila!

We are to change the date on the page no matter what type of change it is. Miniscule or not. If pages get bumped, then we have to change the date on all affected pages. Some pages could have a date change more than once between printings.

That said, in our "old/current' software there is a date attribute set to each page in a chapter that we can change one at a time.

When we have a printed update, we create a memo that lists page numbers/description of change along with the printed revised pages for our customers to swap out.

I'm just wondering what other companies do in FrameMaker and if there is a better way (or after-market product)!

Thank you for your post!

A

Anonymous

Rick Quatro at www.frameexpert.com has quite a few Plugins that deal with change pages and point pages (aka "loose-leaf pages" or "dot pages"), you might check out these, as an example

http://www.frameexpert.com/plugins/printchangedpages/

http://www.frameexpert.com/plugins/pointpages/index.htm

Rick's very knowledgeable about different methods to maintain revision numbering etc., either through separate plugins as the two above are, or else through using FrameScript.

However, that said, there are a whole lot of considerations around maintaining documentation that changes frequently, e.g. will there be more than 1 person changing docs, do the changes ever need to be rolled back, how automated (and/or foolproof!) does the system need to be, whether you need to track exactly who made the changes, etc etc. You might even be better of considering either going to a structured FrameMaker approach, or using some sort of a database publishing / content management system approach, either of which could almost certainly avoid a whole lot of manual work and provide greater speed for producing daily update documentation, all huge benefits -- potentially with a corresponding price tag.

Another consideration is whether your documentation should adhere to some industry standard(s) as far as the layout and content, in which case this is definitely the right time to investigate starting your FM project along the "industry" track.

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

I haven't figured out how to efficiently do this in FrameMaker without creating a text box on every body page and manually type the date (which is what we do currently in our old software).

The revision date of the page isn't an attribute of the page, but of the Flow A content, and that content can re-flow forward or backward to other pages. It would need to take its date with it, and you need a way to resolve multiple dates per page to just the latest.

From what MIF hacking I've done, it doesn't appear that Frame has any data structures that track the rev date below file level, such as by <Para> <Pgf>, <Textline> or <String> tags (which is probably the level of resolution that you need, but even those can span page boundaries).

Even using some normally-hidden text to manually tag each paragraph with a date string is still going to require an add-on to cause only the most recent date to be used to feed the Running H/F or frame-at-bottom of column, or whatever is used to make the rev date visible in the page layout.

I'm guessing that since many industries (aero, pharma, legal) need page-by-page revision control, there's likely an aftermarket solution out there.

Each page as a separate file would work, for generous definitions of the word "work"

Bob_Niland

Community Expert

Even using some normally-hidden text to manually tag each paragraph with a date string is still going to require an add-on to cause only the most recent date to be used to feed the Running H/F ...

Maybe not. I see that structured Frame has a <$highchoice[name]> construct that can be used in Running H/F. I have no idea if it works in unstructured Frame, or precisely what sort of attribute "name" must be fed to it.

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