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August 15, 2008
Question

Updating DITABook chapters from xml

  • August 15, 2008
  • 2 replies
  • 544 views
Using DITABook looks like the best option right now for moving our doc sources to xml, but still producing the high-quality PDF documents we're used to. But, I'm a bit puzzled, and haven't found any discussion of updating the chapters in a DITABook from the XML sources.

The chapters are saved with a .xml.fm extension, which suggests that at least the identiy of the xml origins are preserved, and so could be used for updating the chapters should the underlying sources be changed. But, I'm finding no way to do this except to either recreate the book (which isn't too bad, but does entail rework) or at least delete and re-add the chapter that has changed.

Am I overlooking something, or is that really the idea, that books are created once at the end of a production cycle?

Thanks in advance,
Bruce
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2 replies

August 15, 2008
Great, Scott. Thanks. Not what I was expecting, but workable.
Bruce
Participating Frequently
August 15, 2008
Hi Bruce...

The best way to do this is a two-step process .. create a temporary book from the map to book command, then copy that to the "real" book. Make your changes to the real book (add TOC, Index, frontmatter, and set pagination, and numbering) .. then you can always rebuild the temporary book and the underlying FM files are updated.

See this KB article for specifics ..

http://kb.leximation.com/dfm/?kbid=4

Cheers,

...scott