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C
cvgs
Inspiring
April 23, 2009
Question

Broken links when PDFing Structured FM 8 in Windows XP

  • April 23, 2009
  • 3 replies
  • 2885 views

We have a large number of links in our documents that are created using structured Framemaker 8.0 in a Windows XP environment. The xrefs work fine in FM, but once they have been PDF'd all of the links are broken. Since these are large documents, it can take over a day to relink everything.  All links are created using the fm-xref tag and link to other topics/items within the FM book.

Any suggestions for what may be the problem?

I am also posting this in the Acrobat forum.

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

A
Anonymous
April 23, 2009

I had this problem a while ago.

I think you have to switch on the "Create Named Destinations for All Elements and Paragraphs" option on the Links tab of the PDF print options in FM8.

R
Russ Ward
Brainiac
April 23, 2009

The creation of a named destination for a cross-reference target should be automatic. If you really do have to force named destinations for all paragraphs, I'd say this is an unsettling bug.

Arnis Gubins
Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
April 27, 2009

The Set Destination option isn't working for us either.

This is what we are seeing:

  • In our source doc, a cross-reference is created using the fm-xref structured tag. At that point the cross-reference works. We create a series of topics using cross-references the same way.
  • These topics are assembled into ditamaps.  The cross-references are still working.
  • A book is then created and all ditamaps are created as chapters within the book.
  • At this point, the fm-xrefs stop working. In some cases, they were converted to xrefs instead of retaining the fm-xref tag. At this point, some of the formatting is ignored.  For example, an example tag that looks lovely in the left column, suddenly becomes a Heading 1 which is a chapter heading.

Needless to say, the frustration level is very high.  I would attach, but it appears that .fm or book files are not an acceptable file type.

Please help us. It may be something terribly simple, that we just can't see anymore because we're cross-eyed from troubleshooting.

We love FM and would like to continue to use it, but not if it causes this type of frustration. In fact, we're considering becoming nurses.


Technical comment: To attach other file types, append a ".txt"  after the current file name (e.g. myFile.fm.txt) and the system will accept it. Just let other users know that you've done this.

Cross-refs do work in DITA, as you can't be the only user that's come across this problem in two releases of the product. However, as I also don't do DITA, I really can't help any further at this point either. Hopefully, some one else can pick up on this.

R
Russ Ward
Brainiac
April 23, 2009

cvgs,

Are you generating the PDF at the book level? If so, all inter-book links should work, barring any strange things that might be caused by the DITA app. What error does the link give you in Acrobat?

I hope you get some of these issues worked out. It really sounds to me that you are missing out on some of the primary benefits of FrameMaker as a desktop publisher for long documents. If you can't find some resolution to these problems you've encountered, I'd recommend that you consider other DITA applications for authoring and/or publishing content. If you want to stick with FM, you might also consider abandoning DITA for a less complex structured workflow. Unless you really need compliance with DITA, you can get many of its important features without it.

Russ

Arnis Gubins
Arnis Gubins
Inspiring
April 23, 2009

If the links work fine in the FM book, then I would suspect that the PDF files have either been renamed or moved to a different location and relative paths are now munged.

To check what is going on in the PDF, in Acrobat using the Link tool, examine the Properties of some of the broken links (and from that panel you have to click the Edit button to see actual details) in order to find out where exactly the link is trying to go to.

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