Cross references across multiple books

[Oscar_the_GamingWriter]

Hello Adobe FM community.

I have a project where I must heavily cross-reference 24 books. I've read all the posts regarding how to get this to work. I'd like to document the procedure as clearly as possible and see if anyone might comment. I want to take it step by step and make sure I have it all crystal clear. My apologies for writing absolutely everything out.

This initial post will cover the folder structure setup, and nothing more.

What I've read suggest that I must:

1. Create all book files in the same folder. Let's call the folder C:\RegulatoryBooks\

For example, this folder will contain all my 24 book files, so it will look something like this:

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_01_Introduction.book

                                 \RRI_02_Common_Data_Types.book

                                 \RRI_03_Constructing_Reports.book

                                 \etc.

2. The .FM document files that make up each individual book will be in it's own subfolder beneath the C:\RegulatoryBooks branch. I will give each subfolder the same name as the book, tho I do not think this is necessary. I also do not think that the individual book files need to be in the same branch, but for the sake of this example, that is how I am structuring it.

For example, the folder structure would look like this:

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_01_Introduction\

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_02_Common_Data_Types\

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_03_Constructing_Reports\

3. When I actually create each individual PDF, FM will automagically give the PDF the same name as the book it is based on. I will not change this. So in this example, the PDFs will be in the following branch, and will be named:

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_01_Introduction\RRI_01_Introduction.pdf

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_02_Common_Data_Types\RRI_02_Common_Data_Types.pdf

C:\RegulatoryBooks\RRI_03_Constructing_Reports\RRI_03_Constructing_Reports.pdf

So far, does this look good?

Does anyone have any comments on the above?

Once I feel the above folder/directory structure is correct, my next post will review how to set up the actual cross-references.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time. When I've arrived at a clear procedure for cross references across multiple books, I will compile it all into a single POST and make it available to the entire community.

[Bob_Niland]

PDF is presumably at least one of the final delivery formats. Are there others (e.g. HTML, eBook, XML)?

Where will the final delivery documents reside when viewed by the end users?

Unless there's some new tool to tweak it, in general, the directory relationship between the referencing and the referenced documents needs to be preserved from authoring through deployment. Ordinary Xrefs will just be on relative paths. If you implement them instead as hypertext, then the targets could be anywhere, but it needs to be a controlled anywhere.

[Oscar_the_GamingWriter]

The only desired output is PDF.  The final set of 24 PDF books (cross referenced) can reside anywhere. If I instruct my readers that the files need be in a specific path, that is not a problem.