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_Sandra_Chervinsky_
Participant
March 7, 2008
Question

Links to FM Cross References do not work in Generated PDFs

  • March 7, 2008
  • 4 replies
  • 461 views
Windows XP Professional SP2, FrameMaker 7.0p576, Acrobat Professional 8.1.2.

I have multiple volumes that are intended to ship together. So, for argument's sake, I have Book_1.fm, Book_2.fm, Book_3.fm.

Within Book_2.fm, I create cross-references to Book_2.fm and Book_1.fm.

When I generate the PDF files for all three books (using Frame's Print Book, Printer set to Adobe PDF, Generate Acrobat Data so my bookmarks are generated as links), Book_2.pdf's cross-referenced links to within Book_2.pdf work perfectly. However, Book_2.pdf's cross-references to Book_1.pdf result in the following message:

There was an error opening this document. This file cannot be found.

The problem occurs whether the books reside independently, as a single combined PDF file, or as a PDF package (single combined and package both generated after the three individual Book_x.pdf files exist).

I have kept all PDF filenames identical (minus the extension) to the FrameMaker .book names.

Thanks for your input.
    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

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    _Van_Kurtz_
    Known Participant
    March 7, 2008
    Thanks Arnis. I did not know that it was possible.

    Van
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    _Sandra_Chervinsky_Author
    Participant
    March 7, 2008
    Arnis,

    Thank you so much. That has made my life a lot easier (such small things, huh?).

    I'm having problems with using the Package function in Acrobat, but it's not all that big a deal, since we have a custom interface that will do the same thing.

    Thanks for your help on this.

    Van, thanks for the explanation, and for the life of me, I couldn't figure it out until Arnis replied.

    Again, thanks Arnis.

    Sandra
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    _Van_Kurtz_
    Known Participant
    March 7, 2008
    Sandra,

    This is an explanation and NOT a solution. When you create a cross-reference to another file, you have to have the file open. Apparently, Frame sees a file in a different book as just a file; it seems to have no way to know that it is part of a different book. Hence, the link points to a chapter name, not a book name. Again this is just an explanation.

    I do not know how, or if there is a way, to do what you want to do, other than edit the links after the PDFs are created, which I am sure is not what you were intending to do.

    Maybe the gurus on these forums have a way to do it.

    Van
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    _Sandra_Chervinsky_Author
    Participant
    March 7, 2008
    As a brief follow-up to this ...

    When I go into Acrobat, and look at a link where the file doesn't exist, it's pointing to the chapter_name.pdf and not the Book_x.pdf file. (Yes, I generated the book as a single file, and did this intentionally.)

    So, to cross-reference external (i.e., non-book) files, do things need to be individual chapter PDF files? Something seems amiss to me in that logic.

    Thanks,

    sc
    Arnis Gubins
    Arnis Gubins
    Inspiring
    March 7, 2008
    Sandra,

    If you are making PDFs of books (collections of FM files) with links
    to other books, you have to have all of the linked .book files open
    (no need to open the .fm files though).

    Let FM take care of the file naming when generating the PDFs and never
    rename the files afterwards.
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