Cross-references between PDF files

[_Johannes_Krueger_]

Hello,

obviously there is a way to create separate PDF files from FrameMaker with working cross-references between PDF files.

What I've been trying so far, after having read a number of earlier suggestions in the FM handbook and on the internet:

- Printing a book to PDF with "print to single files" selected
- Printing all .fm files to PDF separately
- Creating a separate book for each .fm file, and keeping all .fm and .book files open while printing the books to PDF
- all of above, using "Save as PDF" instead of printing.

Unfortunately, I succeeded with neither. For futher clarity, I'd like to build cross-reference using the corresponding FM function, not the hyperlink function.

Maybe someone could tell me about their best practice how to get it work.
I'm using FM 8.0p236 and Acrobat 7.1 on Windows.

Thanks in advance.

Johannes

[Arnis Gubins]

If these PDF cross-references are between books, then you must have
all book files (.book) open (but you don't need to have all .fm files
open) for these to be properly resolved.

[_Johannes_Krueger_]

Thanks for your reply, Arnis.

Basically I'd like to use references between PDFs generated from .fm files. Using books was just a guess based on an earlier discussion.

When I inspect the properties of a link inside a PDF file, there's a named target but no file name. Can I do anything about this in FM apart from keeping all books (or .fm files, if otherwise possible) open?

Johannes

[Arnis Gubins]

Johannes,

Two possible scenarios.

If it's just a collection of separate .fm files, then all of these
should be open in FM prior to creating PDFs.

If you're creating separate PDF files from a collection of .fm files
in a book, then you need to use an "*" specifier for the filename in
the "Print to File" line (do not add a file extension) when creating
the postscript files using the Print dialogue. FM will then generate
separate .ps files for each and establish proper links. Note: make
sure that you have the "Generate Acrobat Data" check box enabled in
the Print window.

Test that all of the cross-reference are working as expected in the
.fm files, by using the ctrl+alt buttons and then clicking on the
links. Also setting "Create Named Destinations for all Paragraphs" in
the PDF setup helps.

[Guest]

It would also be a good thing to update your FM intallation to the latest patch version, 8.0p277. [Note: the patches are =not= cumulative, so multiple patches must be installed]

[_Johannes_Krueger_]

Many thanks, Sheila and Arnis. Updating to p277 did the trick.