Fm10s' insatiable thirst for resources - am I doing it wrong?

[Guest]

Hi Guys,

I have just graduated to Framemaker 10 from MS Word (and it is amazing ) but it is very hard lifting for my computer. I am working on a C2Duo T9600 (2.8GHz) with 4GB of ram and Win7 (32bit) and it boggs down horribly. Especially when updating a book (for numbering etc). Granted its not a brand new sledgehammer PC, and granted its a PC, but still....

I cant easily change as it is my work computer, so i reformatted in the hope that it was being plugged up with malware, still no notable improvement.

After all that I figured the problem lay with me. the user.

Here is how I have been building my documents:

1. Start with a blank document, import formatting from original i have made. The original has 1 image (600ppi) across the header in the master page.

2. Create a chapter. Sometimes up to 40 pages with many images, all screenshots (72ppi).

     note the images are saved as png in a separate folder and file -> import -> file is used to embed them.

3. Insert chapter into book and hit 'update' to get numbering to work correctly

I have about 4 different character and paragraph styles that are identical across all chapters/documents in the book.

I guess my question is - should I populate a book with one large file or should i continue using smalled 'chapter' files?

what can i do to boost performance?

am i being a baby? should i just harden up and grow some patience?

thanks for reading!

kind regards,

Casey

[Michael_Müller-Hillebrand]

Casey,

1. Start with a blank document, import formatting from original i have made. The original has 1 image (600ppi) across the header in the master page.

2. Create a chapter. Sometimes up to 40 pages with many images, all screenshots (72ppi).

     note the images are saved as png in a separate folder and file -> import -> file is used to embed them.

3. Insert chapter into book and hit 'update' to get numbering to work correctly

I have a few remarks that may or may not help.

What format is that large master page image? JPG in general is rather hard for computers and printers, because the have to uncompress the file. Even though a file may be 3MByte on disk, it is likely to need 30MByte in memory to be displayed/printed.

What file format are your screenshots? I hope not JPG, because they reduce the quality quite a bit.

Third, FrameMaker usually does better with many smaller files then one large file, but both methods should not be a problem. Customers of mine have projects with 1200+ pages in 50 files in a single book. Regarding updating a book, I find it quicker to use the following sequence instead of just selecting Edit > Update Book (or click that button):

1. Hold Shift and select File > Open All Files in Book
2. Edit > Update Book (or button)
3. Hold Shift and select File > Save All Files in Book
4. Hold Shift and select File > Close All Files in Book

FrameMaker can hold many files open and in memory and does the update blazingly fast if not held up by accessing the file system three times for each closed file.

- Michael

[David_Crowe · Accepted solution]

>>file -> import -> file is used to embed them.

Are you using Import by reference or Copy into document?

If the former you will end up with a very big file (and potentially unstable), which may be too much for your system.

Not sure how you could test this, though, without going through the tedious process of reimporting all the files by reference.

[Van Kurtz]

Are you using Import by reference or Copy into document?

If the former you will end up with a very big file (and potentially unstable), which may be too much for your system.

David,

Not to be picky, but I believe you mean the LATTER method results in big files, not the former.

[David_Crowe]

Quite right, Van. Good job someone is paying attention and correcting my sloppiness.

[Mike Wickham]

note the images are saved as png in a separate folder and file ->

import -> file is used to embed them.

Make sure the Import by Reference box is checked. Copy into Document

makes a much larger file

> I guess my question is - should I populate a book with one large file

or should i continue using smalled 'chapter' files?

Chapter files usually work best.\

> what can i do to boost performance?

The number of pods/panels that you have open can affect the speed of

opening documents. You may want to set up a workspace that uses fewer of

them.

[Guest]

Thank you guiys so much for the help!

@Michael

All the images/screenshots are png format, and the color depth has been reduced where possible.

Thank you for your method of updating books!

@David & Van

Good call David, I had not enabled the ‘by reference’ option. I will try out the ‘by reference’ option on a image heavy chapter check it out!

@Mike

I have cut down all the toolboxes/pods/panels and it has noticeably improved performance…

Thanks again for everybody’s help!

Another thing I did was to copy the save files locally instead of leaving them on a server (5 or 6 drives in RAID 5 over 1000base Ethernet, I thought it would be ok)… This has sped things up a lot.