Chapnum variable converts to "&#8203" when publishing to Epub?

[FrameMaker-dk]

When I publish a book to epub from FrameMaker 2022, the chapnum variables are being published as a "&#8203", which seems to be unicode for a nonbreaking character. Any ideas how to circumvent this odd behavior?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Are you doing this on the latest patch version of FM2022?

[FrameMaker-dk]

Yep: 

Version: 17.0.5.725

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

Hmm, the only person I know that has much ePUB publishing experience is @Matt-Tech Comm Tools - maybe he can chime in with a suggestion. Are any other unicode figments showing up?

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

does your chapnum variable contain a nbs?

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

Apologies for brevity in my last...I sent from my phone

Look to see if the chapnum has a nonbreaking space. If so, replace with a standard space and reprocess.

If that's the issue, and Adobe can't offer a better solution, consider setting up a MIF fragment for the <$chapnum> that eliminates the nonbreaking space that you can import prior to publishing to EPUB.

Not ideal, but an easy workaround, considering how often one might publish to EPUB.

[Bob_Niland]

&#8203; is the decimal entity for:
U+200B ZERO WIDTH SPACE (hex entity &#x200b;)
Does FM even have a keyboard shortcut for inserting that? If not, it would have to have been either typed into a dialog as \u200b, or came in with a copy&paste from somewhere. And if it did manage to get typed into a dialog, such as an autonumber format, it would likely be invisible now, due to FM's policy of dereferencing all \u markups to their Unicode glyphs, even if visually unmaintainable.

FM's Character document does have mention of:
U+200C ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER

U+200D ZERO WIDTH JOINER
but without trying it, I have no opinion on how the inferred semantics for any of these are supported by FM.

[FrameMaker-dk · Accepted solution]

Thanks to you all @Bob_Niland @Matt-Tech Comm Tools @Jeff_Coatsworth . It seems the problem was one of font embedment. If all fonts are not embedded, the entire publishing process malfunctions because internal anchor tags don't work. 

[Matt-Tech Comm Tools]

Thanks for the follow-up!