Framemaker 11 saving

[renard22707655xl4p]

We have a query about Adobe FrameMaker 11. When we create a document and we do save as, it creates an automatically backup too. Till here is everything fine. However as regards the backup document we have noticed that the time indicated on the backup document is earlier than the time of the actual document. We noticed that the time elapsing between the time in the backup and the actual document is not always the same that is sometimes there is a discrepancy of 1min or 2min or even 5mins.

Is there an explanation why the backup document has an earlier time than the actual document from a technical point of view please?

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

You've turned on auto-saving and that's what's creating the .backup files - not your Save As action. You've conflated the two. Depending on what interval you've indicated in your Preferences, the backups will be updated then.

[renard22707655xl4p]

Dear Jeff

Thanks for your reply.

Since im not very good in Framemaker. What will you suggest as ideal settings and also guide me how to change them please. Your assistance is very appreciated.

[Jeff_Coatsworth]

The "Auto Save Every x Minutes" setting is in Edit > Preferences. I think it defaults to 5 minutes - what you set it at is up to you - depending on how often you're making changes, you can set it for shorter or longer intervals. For FM newbies, I always recommend getting a copy of Matt R. Sullivan's Publishing Fundamentals Unstructured FM 11 - it's old, but the concepts are still applicable to FM today.

[shalomb61686619]

Yes, great book!

[Matt S - Tech Comm Tools]

Thanks Jeff, and thanks again for helping edit that Fm 11 book!

While the Fm 11 book would be the best resource for a FrameMaker 11 user, the print version of that book isn't available anymore.

The digital Fm 11 book as well as digital and printed reference books for Fm 2015, 2017, and 2020 are available at 

https://learn.techcommtools.com/collections/frontpage/products/framemaker-reference-books

-Matt

[Bob_Niland]

Auto-save, and the .backup.fm files it creates are principally of use for document recovery after an FM crash. As the other contributors have already pointed out, it's not really an archival function, as the backup can be 5 minutes too old.

Another thing to know about auto-save is that some care is required if you ever need to rely on the .backup.fm file. Either open it directly, or preserve a copy of it. This is because whenever you open a .fm file, with auto-save enabled, FM immeditately over-writes any pre-existing .backup.fm file. Which is to say that, too often, just as you realize you need that backup file, it's now gone.

Back when I was in a production environment, we relied on the journaling file system instead.