Conditional Text/Cross References [was Re: Instructor-Student, A-B flows]

["Adam Korman" <adamk@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Okay, I promised this a couple of days ago, but I've been bogged down with
work. My apologies. What do you want? it's free advice! Anyway...

Here's a potential solution to the question regarding Instructor-Student
books. It's a little convoluted, but it's not as complicated to do as it is
to describe. The basic idea is to keep two sets of files (which on the
surface seems to defeat the purpose of using conditional text), but only
edit one of them (aha!). The second set is just kept around so that your
cross-references to the student's guide have the right page numbers.

I had the task of creating a set of manuals for teacher/student, where the
client wanted:

1. All of the student's text to appear in the teacher's guide.
2. A cross-reference to every page of the student book in the teacher's
guide, so that at any time the teacher could say "we're on page X now."

Obviously a conditional text document was the way to go to satisfy #1. But,
using a single set of files creates a problem for #2 because the teacher's
notes were extensive, and there was no chance that pagination would be the
same in the two guides. The way to get around the problem was to create a
set of dummy files to link the cross-references to, in order to get the
correct student guide page numbers in the teachers guide.

First of all, I'd suggest finishing most of the content before getting into
the cross-references, so you don't have to go through these shenanigans too
often.

So, let's say you've named your files "Chap1" "Chap2" etc. I'll just stick
with "Chap1" for the example:

1. Open "Chap1"
2. Hide the teacher's text
3. Save As... "sChap1"
3. Open "Chap1"
4. Add your cross-references from "Chap1" to "sChap1" (e.g., "refer the
students to page 54")
5. Copy the relevant cross-reference marker from "sChap1" to the same
location in "Chap1" (This is the critical step! Make sure that you don't put
the maker in any teacher's text which will get hidden).

So, you don't actually ever edit the "sChap" files -- you just keep them
around so that the "Chap" files have something to refer to that have the
correct student guide pagination.

Why do step 5? Every time you make significant changes to "Chap1" you'll
want to save over "sChap1" to update the x-refs. If the markers aren't in
"Chap1" your x-refs will break every time you do this. Yes, step 5 is a
pain, but luckily there are better ways to do this!

Option 1: Before you save as "sChap1", add an internal cross-reference to
"Chap1" where you want the external reference. Make sure it's referring to
text that is not tagged for the teacher only. Then, when you save as
"sChap1" your x-ref marker will already be in place. Once you've saved as
"sChap1" just double-click the x-ref and redirect it to the marker in
"sChap1" (instead of looking for the marker internally). To avoid problems,
make sure you are picking from the cross-ref marker list for "sChap1" and
not the paragraph tag list. This is my preferred method for doing this.

Option 2: Before saving as "sChap1" go through "Chap1" and add
cross-reference markers by hand (again, don't add them inside conditional,
teacher's text). Then, reference these markers after saving as "sChap1".

I think that covers it. If there's confusion I'm happy to try to clear it
up.

Adam Korman



----------
>From: "Adam Korman" <adamk@san.rr.com>
>To: John Pilla <JPILLA@optum.com> , Free Framers <framers@omsys.com> ,
FrameUsers <Framers@FrameUsers.com>
>Subject: Re: Instructor-Student, A-B flows
>Date: Mon, Jan 11, 1999, 12:47 PM
>
> But, if the teacher's notes exceed the student's won't the left and right
> pages be mismatched? I would think you have to use a single flow in order to
> keep things straight. If you do have different pagination in the two
> versions, but you want the teacher to be able to reference the correct page
> number in the student's book there is a way to do this. It's a little
> complicated, but I'll follow up later tonight (after I get my own work
> done!) if you're interested in hearing how.
>
> Adam Korman
>
> ----------
>>From: John Pilla <JPILLA@optum.com>
>>To: Framers@Frameusers.com, Framers@Omsys.com
>>Subject: Instructor-Student, A-B flows
>>Date: Mon, Jan 11, 1999, 10:57 AM
>>
>
>> Okay, so I want my cake and eat it, too!
>>
>> 1.  Using separate flows, A & B on left & right masters , respectively
>> 2.  Left (A) being screen shots of software or powerpoint slides
>>      with conditional text as follows:
>>      a)  Teacher - with instructor notes, instructions, info, etc.
>>      b)  Student - with space for note taking
>> 3.  Right (B) being the student material (exercises, text) which appears
>>
>>      in both guides.
>>
>> So that A (Left) and B (Right) have separate page numbers,
>> so the student guide and the teacher's guide coincide?
>>
>>
>> John D. Pilla,  Optum Inc.

** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@omsys.com **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **