Second Text Frame Over the First

[dcrouse10]

I have a doc that, for some reason, has a new text frame layered on top of the first one.  Typing goes into the new frame and I cannot edit the original text.  I can delete the new frame to get at the real text, but it has happened on all pages of the doc.

My question is, where did it come from?  I did not add it, and it wasn't there a month ago.  I did rename the flow, and the new frame is called flow A which is the default and which should not exist anymore.

What gives?

[Bob_Niland]

I have a doc that, for some reason, has a new text frame layered on top of the first one.

There are several ways that can happen.

I can delete the new frame to get at the real text, but it has happened on all pages of the doc.

What's on the Master Page(s)?

[dcrouse10]

The Master Page mostly contain headers and footers describing the document, page and chapter numbers.  A cosmetic bar down one side.  There is a text frame on the page, but it is empty (occasionally used for "Draft" or whatever).  I did delete it and it had no affect on the Body Page or the added frame.

[Bob_Niland]

The Master Page mostly contain headers and footers describing the  document, page and chapter numbers.  A cosmetic bar down one side.   There is a text frame on the page, but it is empty (occasionally used  for "Draft" or whatever).

So the MPs contain no default text frame(s) for Flow A body text?

That implies that body text resides in hand-crafted floating text frames on each body page, which frames may or may not be connected to one another from column to column or page to page. True?

______

This sounds very much like the legacy documents I inherited in my current position. They were using "ransom note" page composition, with text and graphics frames scattered all over the place. Often the text frames were not connected. There were frequent frame overlaps, plus text flow-unders (out of sight at the bottom of unconnected frames). I migrated these documents to MPs with suitable default text frames, and have had no frame overlaps since.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Sometimes, if you (accidentally?) hold the ctrl-key down and try to select an object on a page, a slight "miss" will grab the text frame and a subsequent slight mouse movement will perform FM's copy object action. If you have Snap enabled, you probably won't see anything happening as the text frame will jump back to the original location. If you were doing this on a Master page, you could have added this additional text frame to all pages of the type that were edited.

[AxialInfo · Accepted solution]

Frame docs must have a default flow called "A" -- even if you delete it, or rename it, the next time FM opens the doc it will create the "A" flow, and plunk it on the body pages, always over top of any other flow, using a "default text flow frame size".

In some docs with unusual requirements (aviation manuals) I resized the "A" frame on the master pages to be, say, 1" x 1" and moved it to the outside top corner of the left/right pages, and then created additonal flows named as needed. I then use flow A as a container for markers that were later picked up by Framescripts to populate dynamically created lists of markers or body-page-applied headers/footers.

Sheila

[dcrouse10]

Sounds like a bug to me, but I will accept your answer.  Thanks for the help.

[AxialInfo]

Nope, not a bug, promise, this is the way FM has always worked.

It's the same standard document "minimal structure definition" as the requirement that there always has to be one master page named "Right" (for single-sided docs) or Left and Right for double-sided docs.

In all these cases if the incoming FM or MIF file doesn't have these constructs, FM will created them when the doc opens.

The FrameMaker MIF Reference manual (which is usually included in the install directory "\Documents" would have the details on the basic requirements of every MIF (and by extension, every binary .fm) document.

Sheila

[Lynne A. Price]

Sheila,

  A FrameMaker document need not have a flow tagged 'A'. I have just confirmed this claim in both FM 10 and FM 7.2. In a new portrait document, I did the following:

1. Selected the body text frame on the master page.

2. Used Graphic > Object Properties to bring up the Customize Text Frame dialog box

3. Changed the tag from 'A' to 'New'

4. Clicked Set.

5. In the resulting Rename Flow, confirmed that the Rename All Body and Master Page Flows Tagged: A radio button was set.

6. Clicked Rename.

7. Saved the result as an FM document.

8. Closed the file.

9. Opened the file.

10. Saved it as MIF and inspected the result. There was no flow tagged 'A'.

     --Lynne

[Lynne A. Price]

dcrouse,

  How did you rename the original text flow? If you delete the frame tagged 'A' on the master page, FrameMaker does not delete the corresponding frame on body pages. If you then add a new frame with a different tag on the master page, FrameMaker will add the corresponding frame to the body pages. Thus, your body pages will have two frames which may well be positioned one on top of the other.

  Instead, you can rename the flow on the master page as follows:

1) Ctrl-click on the flow to select it

2) Use Graphic > Object Properties to bring up the Customize Text Frame dialog box

3) Change the tag and click Set

4) When FrameMaker asks whether you want to rename both body and master page frames, indicate that you do.

I can't think of any easy way to remove the extra frames from all body pages. Instead, you can create a new document with the desired frames and copy and paste the contents of the correct frame from the original document into the new one. If the text frames are autoconnected, you can simply delete the extra frame on the first page and use Ctrl-A to select all its contents without any need to touch the remaining pages. Then you can copy and paste.

     --Lynne

[dcrouse10]

I renamed the flow on the body page, not the master page. Changing the

master never occurred to me, but the procedure used was as you described it.

The problem hasn't come back since I blew away all the extra frames (touch

wood), so I am happy for the moment.

Thanks for the helps. You learn something new every day!