Complicated heading and cross-reference situation - Adobe Framemaker

Hi Arnis. Thank you so much for your reply.

In all the years I’ve been using Frame, I’ve never used the HeadingRunIn tag, so this is new to me. I’ve been experimenting with it all day, and still having problems. I’m sure they are easy to fix, as long as you know what you’re doing.

My cross-refs are fine now, but I’m having trouble with the TOC.

I was wondering if my settings for my Heading1 in the source chapter are causing trouble. Each Heading1 is set to start at the top of a page, with right alignment. The Heading1 tag is actually called Heading1Right, to differentiate from the regular Heading1, which has left alignment. (Not my choice – the client’s. They have a previous book with this format, and they don’t want to change.) I don’t think this should make a difference, but I’m mentioning it just in case.

To make things simple, I changed the pagination of Heading1Right to start anywhere on a page, with left alignment, assuming I can change it back afterwards.

But I’m still having problems:

· In the TOC, I want the two parts of the heading (HeadingRunIn and Heading1Right) to appear together, separated by the dash, and followed by the dot leader and page number. But they appear as two separate lines, and the dash is missing. I’ve been trying to find a way to fix the TOC Reference page to combine them on one line, but I can’t see how.

· In the TOC, the page number for HeadingRunInTOC doesn’t use the tab and dot leaders that I set up. The page number sits right beside the code number (the content of the HeadingRunIn). The tab and dot leaders for Heading1RightTOC DO appear correctly. The tab and dot leader formatting in the Paragraph Designer and Reference page are exactly the same, so I can’t see why they appear different.

· Then I tried deleting the tab and dot leaders from the Paragraph Designer and Reference page for HeadingRunInTOC. Didn’t help – I still get two separate items in the TOC.

· I’ve experimented with and without the RunInHead default punctuation in the Paragraph Designer. It looks fine on the actual page, but doesn’t show up in the TOC.

There must be an easy way to fix all this, but I can’t see it. Can you help?

Gilda

Gilda,

If you keep these as separate paratags and use a run-in format for the
first one (code), then you should be able to get the desired effects
in your TOC, body pages and cross-references.

Arnis, thanks again so much. I'm so embarrassed that I'm still bugging you for help.

I followed all your instructions, and we're getting closer, but I still have a couple of problems:

1. The two parts of the heading in the TOC are showing up together on the same line now - hooray!. But the page number is appearing twice - once right after the code, and once in the correct position, like this:

A123 # - DESC.....#

There's no <$pagenum> in the HeadingRunInTOC para tag on the Reference page, so I don't understand why it's appearing twice.

2. As I had mentioned in my previous email, the actual heading in the chapter file is supposed to be right-justified. While I've been playing with all this, I changed both HeadingRunIn and Heading1Right to left justification. But now that I try to turn them back to right-justification, they don't line up properly.

- If I apply right justification to Heading1Right only, I have a big gap between the code and the Desc.
- If I apply right justification to HeadingRunIn only, the Desc moves to the next line, on the left margin.
- If I apply right justification to both, the Desc moves to the next line on the right margin.

I can't see how to get them both on the same line, together at the right margin, without a gap.

Thanks again for your help, Arnis. You are amazing!

Arnis, thank you so much - we're done!

Problem 1: Actually, this was bizarre. I had the right formatting in the Reference page, but the TOC was still giving me the extra page number, which was baffling. Then I discovered there were two TOC reference pages! (I inherited this file from someone else - I don't know how they managed to create two!) As soon as I deleted the second one, my TOC generated perfectly.

Problem 2: I was afraid that the right justification issue would be difficult. I appreciate the suggestion of duplicating the code, once in white, but I don't want to do that. I will have to hand over the final Frame files to the client's staff member, who is a relative novice in Frame. So I don't want to create something complicated for her to maintain and edit in the future. I think I'll explain to the client that I've fixed the two hard parts - the TOC and the cross-refs - and will ask them to make a minor concession to allow left-justification for the headings.

THANK YOU SO MUCH! You've been wonderful to me, a total stranger. I'm very very grateful.

Gilda

Gilda,

I'm assuming the following -

For your "combined" heading A123 - DESC, that:
- HeadingRunIn is for the "A123" code part
- Heading1 is for the "DESC" description part.

In your chapter documents, set the HeadingRunIn code paragraph to have
a run-in property and also set the "Default Punctuation" to include
the dash. Also set the "Next Pgf Tag" to have the Heading1 tag for the
description part (makes entry faster).

Set (or leave as is) Heading1 to your requirements.

Your cross-refs for the code" would go to the HeadingRunIn paragraph.
There won't be any dash to pick-up as it's not part of the entered
text.

In your TOC, ensure that the "HeadingRunInTOC" paratag is also set to
be Run-In and includes the dash for the Default Punctuation.

For the Heading1TOC paragraph, set the tab position and dot leader as
required.

On your TOC Reference Page, edit the entry for the HeadingRunInTOC
paragraph to remove the <$pagenum> building block. Also edit the
Heading1TOC to insert a tab between the <$paratext> and <$pagenum>
building blocks.

Regenerate the TOC.

This should give you a combined entry of the code, dash, description
and dot leader to pagenum on the same line, provided that there are no
intervening paratags being picked up between these two.

Gilda,

1. Regarding the additional page number appearing in the TOC, you have
to go through the entries on your TOC Reference page carefully. If you
the run-in properly set, then the entry on the Reference page should
also be running together, though it actually is two separate paratags.

Look for something like:
<$paratext><$pagenum> - <$paratext>.......<$pagenum>
on a single line and remove the first <$pagenum> building block.

2. Getting both right-justified on the same line is not that easy. Are
the descriptions completely variable in length? If they're all about
the same length, then you could fake it by having the Heading1
right-justified and adding an autonumber tab to the HeadingRunIn (set
left justified) and give it a right tab stop somewhere near where the
descriptions "begin". But then there will be a "gap" that will
probably have to be manually tweaked. If there are lots of these, then
it will be a maintenance nightmare.

An alternate solution is to do a two-step around this issue by
duplicating some data.

If you set your HeadingRunIn paratag (in your chapters) to have a very
small, white font and be *left* justified, it effectively becomes
invisible. Then repeat the code data in the description Heading1Right
tag formatted so that it looks correct when right justified, i.e. just
like you probably had it originally.

For the cross-refs, you can still pull the contents of the
HeadingRunIn tag to get just the code values.

For the TOC, use just the Heading1Right tag.

Clumsy, but it would work. Using FrameScript, this could be automated
so that maintenance would be easier - if you're so inclined to get
down & dirty programming things.

I hope this helps,

Arnis

Gilda,

Your very welcome. Hopefully your client will let you use the
left-justification for the headings to keep things simple and
maintainable.