Applying conditions fails to hide blank pages

Report · Oct 12, 2011

Hi there,

I use FM 9. I have converted several legacy Word docs to FM, and consolidated 3 similar manuals into 1 book, using conditional text. Works beautifully, except that applying conditions to the 2 largest files in the book fails to collapse blank pages. So, instead I get a book that has the total number of pages that I should have when all conditions are shown, leaving blank pages at the end of the file. Pagination is set to remove blank pages upon save/print. I use standard L/R master pages throughout the file. The entire file is 1 flow - no disconnected pages present. These pages have a lot of tables/figures in them, all of which have been conditionalized to show/hide as needed. Because I could not see the markers for the images after the import, I applied conditions to images by selecting the entire line and applying the condition. Like so:

I have tried:

- Conditionalizing the flow marker, OR leaving it as unconditional. I have ensured that my flow marker is set to the Body text style, which starts paragraph Anywhere.

- Adding an extra carriage return before the end of the flow and making it either conditional OR unconditional

- Hiding some conditions and then searching for the "shown" condition in the blank pages via the Find feature. It's not present, and when I get to the end of the shown text, it opens the next file in the book and finds the next conditional text instance.

- Setting "exclude" conditions for text that should be excluded (opposite to the "include" text conditions that have already been set).

- Deleting all the conditions, letting all text revert to unconditional, and re-creating/re-applying the conditions.

Here's what works, but is tedious/seems like it shouldn't be necessary:

- Applying the conditions and then manually deleting the blank pages at the end. I don't want to have to do this every time I need to change the conditions.

Because I'm on a bit of a tight timeline, I ended up creating 3 versions of these files (one for each condition). So, now my book includes the master versions of each problematic file, set to exclude from book, and three versions - one for each condition - set to include or exclude depending on which manual I'm printing. But, again, seems like this should work properly with just the master files.

Any other ideas?

Regards,

Hannah

Report · Oct 12, 2011

I use standard L/R master pages throughout the file. The entire file is 1 flow - no disconnected pages present.

Any chance there's a Master Page Mapping at work that you don't know about?

Check Reference Page MasterPageMaps

And what is the setting of the document's

Format > Page Layout > Pagination ...

Before Saving & Printing:

It needs to be:
[ Delete Empty Pages ]

and it doesn't happen until you save or print.

Report · Oct 12, 2011

Thanks for the speedy response.

Yes - pagination is set to delete empty pages, and I do save the file after applying the condition (but this has no effect on the empty pages at the end). I hadn't checked the Reference pages, but the one I found "UnstructMasterPageMaps" had nothing mapped.

Also, yes - some text does have several conditions applied to it. However, I only ever have 1 condition shown at a time, and everything does appear to hide/show correctly. So I'm not seeing any unwanted text, tables, or figures....just blank pages - always at the end of the file. I'd maybe understand better if the blank space was showing up where the hidden text once was...but it's not. It's like FM hides all the conditions, squishes all the text together appropriately, and then just leaves whatever amount of empty space at the end.

Report · Oct 12, 2011

.... "UnstructMasterPageMaps" had nothing mapped.

Interesting that that Reference Page exists.

In legacy Frame, it wasn't created until the first AMP.

When you are on the blank pages, what does this show?

Format > Page Layout > Master Page Usage

And if not Left or Right, it might clear up with an AMP:

Format > Page Layout > Apply Master Pages

Report · Oct 12, 2011

When I'm on the blank pages, unfortunately, it does just show that standard L/R masters are being used. I have done several book updates, sometimes applying master pages in the course of my consolidating this document. So, I think everything should be L/R, except for the title page in the first file, which is set as custom.

Report · Oct 12, 2011

The entire file is 1 flow - no disconnected pages present.

Being a single Flow A isn't necessarily related to no Disconnected pages. Someone else might have created disco pages at some time.

Can you delete the pages manually? if not, what happens?

[Edit: never mind - I see that you've been able to do that.]

Brute force fix might be to create a new doc and import formats, then paste in content.

Report · Oct 12, 2011

... applying conditions ...

Another possibility, since you used the plural of "condition".

If multiple condition codes are applied to the same text, the legacy behaviour (without conditional expressions) was Hide on .AND.

If any one of the conditions is set to Show, the text is shown.

_____

I haven't used conditional expressions, and can't guess at what complications that might drag in.