Participant

Question

FM12 suddenly opening multiple docs in a book in different windows instead of tabs

Forum|Forum|8 years ago
May 11, 2017
2 replies
694 views

In unstructured Framemaker 12, when we select all of the documents in a specific book, they used to all open as tabs of the same Window. Most of the are now opening in individual windows apart from the last five or six which appear as tabs in a single window.

Nothing was changed in the book document or the files themselves. And this only occurs with one book.

Any thoughts?

This topic has been closed for replies.

N

NeilWilliamsonAuthor

Participant

Thanks, Matt. The preferences are fine. I'm not sure what difference changing the prefs directory will make as this only affects one book file. The rest all operate as expected.

Matt-Tech Comm Tools

Community Expert

Neil, look at your preferences first. Fm 2017 has an Open Documents as Tabs option, and you should have something similar in Fm 12.

If that doesn't help, try renaming the prefs directory (the 12 directory in your Roaming directory)

(for example, C:\Users\Matt\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\FrameMaker\12)

and then restart FrameMaker. If you need any of the resources (like Workspaces) you can retrieve them from the renamed 12 directory.

LMK if that helps.

-Matt Sullivan, FrameMaker Course Creator, Author, Trainer, Consultant

Barb Binder

Community Expert

Hi Neil:

I don't have 12 installed anymore—although I have a student in class tomorrow who does, so I can take a look at her prefs. But as Matt said, I think there is a control in Edit > Preferences > Interface. You won't have all of these (this shot is from 2015), but you will at least have a few of them—start with making sure Open Documents as Tabs is checked.

That said, when you have floating windows, the fix is easy: Click the Arrange Documents button on the Application Bar (two squares to the right of the Help menu) and pick the first button in the menu (it's the blue button below). This consolidates all floating windows back to the tabbed interface.

~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training

L

Lynne A. Price

Inspiring

Hey Barb - many thanks for this. Although I think my initial description of the issue may have been a bit loose. Rectifying it, isn't really the problem. I'm trying to understand why it happens.

So. We have a book file with, say, 20 chapters. All of these chapters used to open in the same window as standard, but suddenly we found that chapters 1-13 wanted to open in a new window each although chapters 14-20 still opened in a single window.

So, it can't be a global preference or a book preference. It must be something at the document level. I was wondering if anyone knew what was causing it, because even though it only takes a couple of clicks to sort it, it's still a pain.

Cheers again

Neil

Neil,

Does the problem book behave the same way on different computers?

I assume that by now you have rebooted (or restarted) your system and you get the same behavior.

Have you tried opening the book in a later version of FM?

My inclination given mysterious behavior is to simplify the data as much as possible without changing the incorrect results. I would probably start with the book. Does your book use folders or groups? What happens if you delete them? What happens if you create a new book with the same files?

Next, I would probably save the book as MIF and reopen it. If that didn't make a difference, I'd start removing files from the book. Are there generated files in the book? What happens if you remove them? Given your example of chapters 1-13 opening in separate windows and 14-20 in one window, I'd try removing chapters 2-12 and 15-19. I would probably do so one at a time, saving the book (and maybe relaunching FM) and opening all files in the book after each change. I would close all files before making the next change.

If I got to the point where a book containing only chapters 1, 13, 14, and 20 opens chapters 1 and 13 in separate files, I would try deleting chapter 14 and then 20.

If I found one particular file made a difference, I would put all chapters but that one back in the book and see what happens. If I got to the point where two very similar books behave differently, I would do a doc compare on MIF versions of the book.

Once I had a minimal book, I would start minimizing the chapter files. Can you delete content from the files? Entries from various catalogs? Master or reference pages? Substitute a simple new file for an original file?

Good luck and let us know what happens.

--Lynne

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