Working in conditional documents

A conditional document can display any number of conditions at a time and can have any of its condition indicators on or off. For example, you can change the view to display the condition tags for one particular version, for several versions, or for all versions. To display more than one version, you leave the condition indicators on. Also leave them on if you’re displaying one version and want to see which part is conditional.

You can view conditional text by selecting one of the following options:

Show All

Shows all text to which condition tags have been applied.

Show As Per Condition

Shows text based on a specific condition tag.

Show As Per Expression

Shows text based on an expression that includes a complex combination of condition tags and Boolean operators.

1. To change the view of a conditional document, click Show/Hide Conditional Text from the Conditional Text pod.

2. Do one of the following to select the conditional text that you want to show or hide in the document:

   • Select the Show All option.

   • Select the Show As Per Condition option. Move the desired condition tags between scroll lists. If any condition tag in the Show list is applied to text in your document, the relevant conditional text appears in the document. You can select the Show If All Conditions Applied option only if all condition tags selected in the Show list are applied to that text.

   • Select the Show As Per Expression option, and then select an expression from the pop-up menu.

3. Indicate whether you want to display condition indicators, and click Apply.

   Note: Condition indicators are style and color parameters that are used to distinguish conditional text from plain text. For example, you can create a Condition Tag called Private Comment and configure its Style as Double Underline, and its Color as Blue.

When you import text containing passages of conditional text, all the condition tags applied to text in the source document are also imported. You can use them to show or hide imported conditional text. Even if you import the text by reference and it appears in a text inset, you can change the view of conditional text in the inset.

The following conditions determine whether text is shown or hidden:

• When the Show All option is selected in the destination document, all conditional text appears.

• When the Show As Per Condition option is selected in the destination document, conditional text matching any selected condition tags in the Show list appears in the document. When the Show If All Conditions Applied option is selected in the destination document, all conditional text in the document is displayed only if all the tags that you selected in the Show list are applied to text in the document.

• When the Show As Per Expression option is selected in the destination document, only conditional text that is based on the selected expression appears.

When you work in a conditional document, FrameMaker generally ignores hidden text. For example, the Find/Change and Spelling Checker commands check only displayed text. However, you can cut, copy, and paste hidden text by selecting the conditional text marker and by using the Edit commands.

In a conditional document, work with text symbols turned on. Conditional text markers alert you to text that is in other versions of the document. You can change conditional text in the following ways:

• To find conditional text, search for items tagged with a visible condition tag. FrameMaker finds conditional text in text frames, graphic frames, and table cells. It does not find conditional table rows.

• Use the Edit menu commands as you normally do.

  When you copy text, FrameMaker copies its conditional text markers and condition tag settings. When you paste text with a condition tag that’s not in the destination document, FrameMaker adds the tag to the destination document. When you try move or delete hidden conditional text, FrameMaker displays an alert message. You can delete the text or cancel the command.

• Use Paragraph and Character Designers to apply format changes to hidden text.

  Paragraph and character format changes you apply to selections don’t update conditional text hidden within the selection. To apply a format change to all paragraphs or characters, including hidden conditional text, click Update All in the designer. Or, you can choose Update All from the Paragraph Format pop‑up menu on the formatting bar.

  Applying format changes with Import > Formats also updates hidden conditional text.

• To spell-check or search through all text, show all conditional text before using Edit > Spelling Checker or Edit > Find/Change.

Before you produce a finished version of a conditional document, follow these guidelines:

• Change your view of the document to include only the version you want to print, and turn off condition indicators.

• If your document contains variables, make sure that the variable definitions are correct for the version you’re printing.

• Spell-check the document. This feature finds double spaces and punctuation problems caused by incorrectly tagged conditional text.

• Update cross-references. If the document contains unresolved cross-references, perhaps they point to cross-reference markers in hidden conditional text. Show the version and update the cross-references again.

• Create a copy of the document for each version before manually adjusting line and page breaks. Use the copy for each version for making the adjustments and for printing. These adjustments differ with each version. Use the original document for future edits.

• If the document is part of a book, update the book and its generated files. If the book contains documents with different condition indicators for the same tag, FrameMaker displays an alert message. It also alerts you if some condition tags are displayed in one document but are hidden in another. If this situation occurs, click Cancel to stop book generation. Correct the conditional text settings of your documents.

• After generating an index, check it for double question marks (??), which indicate missing or incorrect index markers.

You can insert, wrap, merge, and split elements in conditional structured documents as you can in other documents. FrameMaker applies the following conditions as needed:

• When you insert an element, the new element takes the condition tags of the location of the insertion point.

• When you wrap an element, the new element generally takes the condition tags of the location of the selection. If the selection crosses boundaries, the next two conditions apply.

• When you wrap a selection that crosses the boundaries of two conditions, the new element does not take any condition tags. The contents of the element keep their tags.

• When you wrap a selection that crosses the boundary of conditional and unconditional text, the new element does not take any condition tags. The contents are still partly conditional and partly unconditional.

• When you merge two or more elements that have different condition tags, the new element does not take any condition tags. The contents of the element keep their tags.

• When you split an element, the two elements have the same condition tags as the original element.

Validate each version in a conditional document showing only one version at a time.