Re: Revision (point) pages

["Thomas Michanek" <thomas.michanek@xxxxxxxxx>]

From: Carol Elkins <celkins@awrittenword.com>

>Hi folks. I'm curious as to whether any of you have experience using 
>Frame's revision (point) page feature as described in Chapter 25 (Revision 
>Management) of the manual. The manual warns several places that freezing 
>the pagination (which is required in this feature) often produces 
>"undesirable results." Since most software companies aren't very overt 
>about warning of pitfalls, I'm wondering what REALLY happens.

You're looking in the Frame 5.0 manual, right? This feature is no longer
mentioned in the 5.5 manual. The reason is that this feature is so badly
implemented that it isn't worth the effort in trying to use it.

If you only have documents with a single flow, no tables that breaks
between pages, no paragraphs that break between pages, and no floating
graphics, then this feature may be usable. The problem with freezing
pagination is that each page will become a page of its own, a bit like
disconnected pages.

For instance, if a table breaks between pages, the entire table is anchored
at the first page, and the parts of the table that's on the following
pages are put into "point pages"! Then the text that follows the table
is put on the next non-point page. (Try it yourself.) To avoid this,
you'll have to manually split the table into several separate tables and
anchor them at the top of the correct non-point page... 

For paragraphs that break between pages, they are split into two separate
paragraphs that won't be re-joined if you unfreeze the pagination.

Graphics in anchored frames that are floating, and thereby put on a
different page than the anchor, receive the same treatment as tables
broken between pages: they are put into a point page with the remaining
text on the page containing the graphic put on the next non-point page.

You'll spend endless time correcting things like this, and then the same
amount of time changing it back if you ever unfreeze the pagination.

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Thomas Michanek, [Michagon], Linkoping, Sweden
Documentation Consultant, FrameMaker/UNIX expert
EMAIL:  mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com
WWW:    http://go.to/framers , or go directly to:
        http://w1.133.telia.com/~u13304072/framers
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