Re: Volumes and work flow

[Thomas Neuburger <thomasn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Elizabeth,

FrameMaker does not support a "book of books" -- Frame's "volumes" are 
closer to "parts" within a book. Part I, chapters 1-3; Part II, chapters 
4-9; etc.

Ultimately you'll end up with most of what you want, but the process is 
different than you anticipate. You can easily create the Mongo Book, which 
is the ultimate goal as I read your post. But it won't be a book of books; 
just a book containing all chapters created to date.

You can create the impression of hierarchy with "volume" title pages, using 
the <$volnum> building block to handle volume numbering. But within the 
book file these files are just very short chapters. The impression of 
hierarchy is handled by your volume and chapter numbering setup, controlled 
by the book file Numbering dialog box.

The volume TOCs can still be used, but note that they are children of the 
old volume-level book files (which you say you're creating), not of the 
Mongo book file, which isn't created yet. The Mongo book file can produce 
only a book-wide TOC, etc.

To include the volume TOCs, you'll have to maintain the smaller book files 
separately using the same chapters as the big book file, auto-generate 
"volume" TOC chapters, and then manually include that TOC material (as 
"chapter" files, not as generated files) in the big book.

But there's a danger, in that your smaller book files could alter chapter 
settings controlled by the big book file. One might assume that in this 
case the big book file would simply reestablish it's own settings, but I'd 
test that to be sure.

There are other schemes as well to accomplish your goal (volume-level 
TOCs), some perhaps safer, all of them manual to some degree.

Feel free to contact me directly with questions; I'm on digest and don't 
always see all posts.

Good luck,

Tom Neuburger

The Masters Series: FrameMaker 6
ISBN 1-930597-01-0
On sale at www.bn.com



>Subject: Volumes and work flow
>From: "Elizabeth godfrey" <godfreje@nv.doe.gov>
>Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 12:09:23 -0700
>X-Message-Number: 3
>
>Dear Framers,
>
>I'm the one who's working on an Operating Manual that will be composed of
>8 volumes, each with about 8 chapters. We chose Frame because it will
>allow us to cross-reference, index, and automatically update within the
>entire Manual. We're working with FM 6.0 on Windows 2000 Pro, and a total
>of 12 months experience with FM between the three of us.  And of course,
>we're just starting to get into the complicated stuff. ...
   


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