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Participating Frequently
September 5, 2014
Question

What about these variable definitions?

  • September 5, 2014
  • 1 reply
  • 221 views

I inherited a set of FM books, and I don't understand the variable definitions. What is the difference in the several ways that "< >" is used in these examples?

ProductLine       <italic>Cheese

ProductName    <skim milk>

Company          </>S&J</>

CompanyLong    Smith and Jones Dairy

Is one or more variable ill-defined?

Thanks!

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    1 reply

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    September 5, 2014

    <italic> implies that a Character Format of that name exists and is to be applied to the word "Cheese" which is inserted in the flow.

    <skim milk> makes no sense at all. What does it show up as, if anything?

    </>S&J</> is syntactically the same as <Default ¶ Font>S&J<Default ¶ Font>

    The leading </> might make sense if the author thought there was some risk of a format override in the paragraph that needed to be turned off. The trailing </> is at the very least unnecessary.