How to delete invisible reference to imported graphic?

[Guest]

I recently moved a book to a new folder, Now when I open my Cover document, Frame asks for the location of an imported graphic it can't find. As far as I know, I deleted this imported graphic some time ago. I don't see a paragraph marker for it on the page the List of References gives for it. It isn't visible on the Body pages or Master pages. No gray rectangle anywhere.

How can I find and remove this invisible reference?

When I click Ignore on the missing graphics dialog, it asks again the next time I open the document. When I open the document in Notepad, I see the name of the graphic it's looking for. Can I just delete that name using Notepad?? (Suspect that would be too good to be true.)

Thanks for any help on yet another Frame issue not covered by the documentation.

[Arnis Gubins]

The graphic might be on your Reference page.

If you generate your List of References with the hypertext option enabled, you should be able to control+alt+click on the entry for this "hidden" graphic and FM will take you right to it (it will also be the current selection).

[Guest]

When I clicked on the link, it first took me to the dialog reporting that it couldn't find the pic. When I reluctantly linked up the reference to the "missing" pic again, it just showed me the current picture, the picture that I do want to display on the cover.

I suspect that the "missing" pic is behind the good pic somehow. The method I used to display both of them was to simply click the blank page (no anchored frame) and paste the picture onto that first page. The current, good pic, is enclosed in a frame, but when I select that frame and Cut it, I don't see any other frames, gray rectangles, or paragraph markers lurking behind it. As far as I know, the first page was completely empty when I pasted the currently displayed, good graphic onto it.

Since I don't want to screw around with reformatting the good pic, I guess I'll just leave all as is rather than trying to delete everything and start over.

There is indeed a possibility that the old pic is somewhere on the ref pages, which are cluttered with html tables I don't understand and don't want. Yet I don't see anything that looks like a picture, missing or otherwise.

Still, this procedure could be useful when I have a similar problem in the future. I learned that the LOR has links like the Indexes do.

Thanks.

[Arnis Gubins]

You can always re-shuffle the order of the graphics by using the Graphics menu "Send to Back" or "Bring to Front" options. Select the current image, send it to back, refresh the screen (ctrl+ l - lowercase L) and see if you have somethig hiding behind it.

Note: you can have multiple images/graphics in a frame, so select the graphic, not the frame, when you want to see what's back there.

Regarding the Reference pages and HTML mapping tables, you can simply delete those pages that you do not want - Special > Delete Page "HTML" or "Headings".

[Guest]

I think I must have messed everything up by pasting the graphic onto a blank page rather than into a frame. I tried the Send to Back etc thing earlier, but I only see the current picture. When I click in the margin (to deselect the frame) and then right-click the picture, to try to select the picture without selecting the frame, the frame handles appear too, so it looks to me as if the picture and frame are inseparable.

[Guest]

Could it be lurking on one of  the Reference pages?

As far as your options for removing it, yes, you could remove it in the MIF file. Depending on which version of FM, though, be very careful that you use a text editor that can accommodate unicode so that things don't get munged up by the editor.  Also, stating the obvious, be SURE to have backup files before you edit, 'natch  😉

Complication with removing from MIF though is that ideally you would also want to remove the frame or anchored frame that it was in.

Have you used FM's search to search for "Any anchored frame" -- the anchor position could have gotten munged enough that the graphic is not visible, maybe it's behind something else.

Another way to search is to go to each body page, click on the page margin, then do "Cntrl-a" for Select All. Then carefully examine all the box "handles" shown, to see if there is an object that's positioned behind something else.  (note: This can be quite a revealing step, as I've seen files that had literally dozens of little empty text frames scattered around the body pages, where somebody had clicked on the page when the text frame tool was active but then not actually added any text to the frame or the string.)

From looking at the MIF you might possibly be able to determine what page it's on, but that can be tricky to do because of the way FM uses ID numbers.

Let us know how it turns out --

btw, in forum postings it's always a good practice to specify exactly which FM version you're using, including the "pxxx" numbers as shown in Help > About.

Sheila

[Guest]

Thanks, Sheila. I still could not find it. When I searched for "Anchored Frame", Frame search did not find one in the Cover doc. I believe I displayed the graphics by simply copying them and pasting them onto a blank page. When I deleted the old graphic and pasted another one onto the first page, the new one shows up the way I want it to, but somehow Frame still remembers the other one, even though I thought I deleted it.

I did try that CTRL + a procedure, but the only handles I see are the ones enclosing the newly pasted graphic, the one I want to keep.

Since everything is actually displaying correctly, I think I will just live with the annoyance of the extra, hidden graphic, wherever it is.

Thanks for your help.

John

[Guest]

By the way, Sheila, VERY coincidentally, I came across another solution by you earlier today for an problem regarding a corrupted file. You recommended saving the .fm as a .mif and then saving the .mif back as an .fm file again. When I tried to save my .mif back as the original .fm type file, Frame would not allow me to. I have FrameMaker 8. Is there something wrong with my installation, or does Frame 9 allow this conversion but not earlier versions?

But your answer helped me to solve the problem by creating a new .fm file, copying everything in the .mif, and pasting it into the .fm. It seems to have worked, so thanks for that problem solved.

[Guest]

John,

When saving a mif file back to FM, it appears that there is not a .mif extension on the file, but there is. With the mif file open, File>Save As and in the filename field, click at the end of the filename and click the backspace button. The file extension will then be apparent and you can change the .mif to .fm. Hope that makes sense.

Janice

[Guest]

Thanks Janice, I was able to save a .mif as a .fm by deleting the .mif extension from the filename & indicating the type only by selecting .fm in the Save as Type box below.

By the way, do you happen to know anything about my current mystery, undragable imported files?

[Guest]

One more possibility, John. It could be that the problem graphic is still in the frame where you originally put it, but if you've resized the frame at any point it could be "hidden" because it's now "off the paste board" or outside the frame's area, in other words the graphic has a  negative position for top/left within the frame.

In addition to the suggestions about using "bring to front/bring to back", you can try this:

• select the graphic frame with the pointer tool so that the handles are visible. continue holding the Ctl key down.
• now do Ctl+a to Select All within that frame. Notice that the graphic frame's handles disappear. Anything inside the frame, even if it's got negative positions, would now be selected.
• Then, very carefully,  click once on the current graphic to de-select it. let up (un-depress) the Ctl key.
  
• Now, do Alt+g,p (hold Alt down, type g then p). If there are only two objects in the graphic frame, and you've de-selected the current graphic, the Alt+g,p should bring up the object properties dialog window with the information about the problem graphic's size and position.
• If the left or top offset values are negatives, change them both to 0, then click Set. The problem graphic should jump to the top left corner of the frame.

EDIT: oops, I now see that you pasted the graphic onto the page, it sounds like it's not in a graphic frame at all. When you select any graphic or object in FM, it has handles of its own; if the object was inside a frame then both it and the frame would have handles.

Message was edited by: Sheila Carlisle

[Guest]

Sheila, I really appreciate the effort you've given this, but I may not have accurately described the situation. When I pasted the graphic I can see, I did not paste or import it into an anchored frame or text frame. I just pasted it onto (what I thought was) an empty page. So the "frame" I am seeing might simply be the edge of the graphic, not a frame.

So when I follow your instructions, and press Ctrl + a, the sizing handles and dotted line around the graphic I can see do not disappear (although a text box within the area of the graphic does become selected). And when I then click on the graphic, it does not become deselected, so that when I get the properties box, it shows the properties of the graphic I can see. I can't ever see the properties of the "other" graphic & wouldn't believe it was there except for the List of References says its on page i, the very first page of the cover doc.

At any rate, I now have worse smelling fish to fry. Would you please take a look at the latest error I posted? All the graphics that I have imported into anchored frames seem to have become frozen. I can't drag them, though I can move them by ALT + arrow key. Any ideas on that one??

Frame hates me.

[Guest · Accepted solution]

John, I think if I were you I'd recreate the cover chapter. It shouldn't take too long --

• create a brand new FM file.
• Save the new file as "coverNew.fm" (or whatever)
• With only these two files  open in FM, and with the new file as the "active" file, do File > Import > Formats. Be sure that the "import from" at the top of the dialog specifies the old file. Import all the formats. Save the new file.
  
• If you have text in the old file, click your cursor anywhere in the text and do Ctl+a to select all the text in the flow.
• In the new file, click your cursor into the empty text frame and do Ctl+v to paste. Save the new file.
• For the new graphic, draw a graphic frame on the page where you want it to be placed.
  
• In the old file, select the graphic by clicking on it -- be sure to just click on it, don't do Ctl+a or you might inadvertently get the old graphic too. Do Ctl+c to copy.
  
• In the new file, select the empty graphic frame you just created, and do Ctl+v to paste. Save the new file.
  
• Then, when you've got your new file with all the content transferred, close the old file. Do File Save As to name the new file the same name as the old file.

Let us know how you get on.