"Missing Images" reported in hidden conditional text

[Guest]

Hello,

In our FrameMaker documents we use conditional text frequently.

In one specific example we make 4 different documents from a single source file.

When the document is finalized the conditional text that does not apply to the given book is hidden.

In most cases the conditional text includes image references that are hidden as well.

The problem is when we the FrameMaker source is opened by another team they receive numerous "missing image" messages. This is because FrameMaker (9) reports "missing images" even in hidden conditional text.

Is there a way around this issue? Is there a way to suppress "missing images" messages from hidden conditional text?

We do not want to include all the artwork for the missing images as these graphics/section do not apply to the given book and will bloat the source file size.

Please advise.

It would add a great deal of unwanted work to rebuild 4 document source files from this one FM source file and package them for archival/distribution.

Thanks!

[Arnis_Gubins]

FM is just reporting what it sees in the document. Hiding something doesn't remove the content from FM, so if you hide a graphic and then don't supply it to FM, it will point this fact out. FM's hidden content is simply moved to a special page, but kept track of.

You have to re-think this approach to single-sourcing. Instead of including everything and then trying to hide various bits, why not use insets and different book builds to pull in what's needed? Either way, fixing this probably won't be easy...

When you say that you don't want to include the artwork for the missing graphics because it will bloat the source file size, does this mean that you are including your graphics by copy instead of by reference? That isn't an optimum practice. Referencing graphics files in a standardized library (folder) would help sort out your missing graphics error messages.

[Guest]

Hello,

I appreciate the feedback. In my case when a book is completed we deliver the book to end user customers as a PDF. We also deliver the FrameMaker Source File and Graphics in a zip file to our OEM partners who customize the documentation.

In general each book we create is sent to the OEM partner in a stand-alone ZIP file (which contains a source subfolder and a graphics subfolder).

The issue we have (as noted earlier) is our OEM partner opens up the source and sees the "missing images" messages and assumes they are missing graphics. However these graphics are in "hidden" conditional text areas that they do not or do not apply to the book in question.

We of course have various OEM partners who take various versions of our document sets. We supply them only the source (and graphics) they need (and not the content they do not need). If we were to include all of the "missing images" the ZIP file size in some cases would go from 10 MB to 50 MB or more.

We are using insets in some of our books that we then flatten for the source file zips that are redistributed to outside parties.

I'll have to look further into the book builds you mentioned as well.

Thanks.

[Arnis_Gubins · Accepted solution]

In light of what you describe as your deliverables, there is a technique that can get you around the missing graphics when hidden.

If each of the FM sets (books) that you send to your OEM partners does not actually need to have the "hidden" conditional content, then you can simply delete the condition tag from the condition catalog [Danger Will Robinson, Danger!]. This will then prompt FM to ask if you want to make the "hidden" text for that tag unconditional or if you want to actually delete it. Either way, it's a one-way street.

You must be very careful with this route and preserve a master copy with all condition tags intact.

[Bob_Niland]

... delete the condition tag from the condition catalog [Danger Will  Robinson, Danger!]. This will then prompt FM to ask if you want to make  the "hidden" text for that tag unconditional or if you want to actually  delete it.

Any hints on the dangers (other than no undo)?

My first thought was that perhaps overloaded content might be deleted. However, in a quick test, it appears that text having more than one condition code applied, where one of the codes is deleted, is not itself deleted. Apparently, only text having JUST the deleted code gets vanished.

We recently began creating dual-entity manuals relying on condition codes (including conditional anchored frames with entity-specific imports). Some of these manuals are already earmarked for translation, so we will face the same issue of whether to ship all the imports or just delete conditionals.

I'm inclined to delete the conditionals, because in addition to the "other" entity content, we also have content hidden for publication by codes tagging it as unreleased content, common tables with rows that don't apply to the widget at hand, etc. No point confusing the translators beyond necessity.

[Guest]

Thanks again.

We'll be looking into the maintaining a master source file and generating copies with deleted conditional text at production time.

The other suggestion (admittedly kludgey) was to simply make dummy graphics files (small file size, with same names as the hidden "missing" graphics). These placeholder graphics would then supress the "missing" error messages that our partners would otherwise see and inquire about.

[AxialInfo]

I would suggest creating a FrameScript (or possibly the new ExtendScript) workflow to finalize the document set, so that it could be customized as needed for each partner. For example, when the user wanted to "export" a doc set for a partner, the script would:

1. ensure copies of the current file are saved and backed up.
2. open the current FM documents.
3. delete the conditional text as needed. **
   
4. save the customized FM files and referenced graphics, etc., to a newly created directory
5. create the necessary PDFs from the customized files
6. create production reports, e.g. showing current graphics (list of references), or do other summary type of things like ensure that the count of the number of graphic references in FM matches the number of files in the graphics directory; or do Q&A things like ensure that there aren't any errors on opening the customized set.

** this "delete conditional text" step could in actuality be more Q&A oriented, it could in fact check the files for overlapping conditions, show errors, possibly display the content that would be removed so that the user can preview it, and so on.

[Arnis_Gubins]

The main danger is that you can't see what content is being permanently deleted.

The other side-effect is if you use Conditional Expressions instead of the basic Hide/Show approach. When using Conditional Expressions, you can have overlapping conditions where the one component is hidden. However, if that tag is deleted, then the content magically re-appears. It's quite possible that you do NOT want this content to be present in the "deleted" version and you might not even notice that it reappeared in the overalpped conditions (especially if you weren't the author applying the conditional tags).

Hence, the warning that this approach has to be handled carefully.

If you want to see all of what gets hidden, then in a MIF version of the FM file, you can look at the textflow called HIDDEN that has been placed on a special page called [HiddenPage].

[peter_minneapolis]

Arnis Gubins wrote:

The main danger is that you can't see what content is being permanently deleted.

The other side-effect is if you use Conditional Expressions instead of the basic Hide/Show approach. When using Conditional Expressions, you can have overlapping conditions where the one component is hidden. However, if that tag is deleted, then the content magically re-appears. It's quite possible that you do NOT want this content to be present in the "deleted" version and you might not even notice that it reappeared in the overalpped conditions (especially if you weren't the author applying the conditional tags).

Hence, the warning that this approach has to be handled carefully.

If you want to see all of what gets hidden, then in a MIF version of the FM file, you can look at the textflow called HIDDEN that has been placed on a special page called [HiddenPage].

Another possibility is to use FM's or Acrobat's document comparison feature.

Regards,

Peter Gold

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