Compare Books feature not working

[Jonathan...@adobeforums.com]

I am using Frame 6.0 on windows 2000.

Each time I try to compare old and new versions of a document, the Summary page only indicates changes in the document names, rather than the actual changes in content. In addition, there are no links to open the cmp file.

I don't know if there is a problem with a Frame setting or in Windows, or if I am simply missing something.

I have used the Help files and asked other Frame users, but no one can help.

Any suggestions out there?

Thanks,

JL

[Arnis_...@adobeforums.com]

Are you trying to compare entire books or just specific documents
within the books?

When you compare Books, FM just lists the changes in the files
included in the two books, i.e. it does not check the contents of the
individual files.

When comparing documents, FM then compares the contents of each
document specified.

In order to compare all of the files contained in two separate book
files, you will have to go through each pair of documents one-by-one
and do the compare.

This could be automated with a Framescript.

[Jonathan...@adobeforums.com]

I am trying to compare whole books (sorry, my nomeclature was off in my original message). Can you add any info re the Framescript?

Anyhow, I feared that I would have to compare each document. Although, the Help file makes it sound like you can easily compare whole books. The following is directly from the Help (Frame 6.0):

FrameMaker can compare two versions of a book to show you what has changed. It looks not only at the text in the two versions, but also at footnotes, markers, anchored frames, text insets, variables, and cross-references. For details, see Items compared.
When you compare two versions of a book, only documents with matching filenames are compared.

To compare two versions of a book:

1 Open both versions of the book file.
2 In the book window of the newer version, choose File > Utilities > Compare Books.
3 Specify the older version and the documents you want to create.
The summary document gives a report of differences in the files. Composite documents (which have a CMP suffix) show the differences in the files side by side.
4 To set up the comparison options, click Options (see Comparing document versions
).
5 Click Compare. When the comparison is complete, only the summary document appears.

6 Click a page number in the list of changes to open the composite document or to jump to the spot where that change occurs in either the newer or older document.

[Jonathan...@adobeforums.com]

I think you were right in the first place (that the issue is that I need to compare at the document level, rather than at the book level).

As for my file names, I've just had something wonky happen with the files; I re-copied the originals from disk, and all of a sudden all the file names are in all caps. Don't know how this will affect my attempt to compare, but I'm about to find out ;)

Thanks for your help!!!

[Arnis_...@adobeforums.com]

Sorry about that (it's not a feature that I use). I just checked the
behaviour of the Compare Books option on some files here and it does
compare files with identical names in FM6.

Are all your filenames different between the two books?

[Sally_...@adobeforums.com]

I am also having the same problem with comparing books and will now go back and try it at the document level. Now I understand what was meant by having documents with matching names. I need to find out more about Framescript.

By the way, I'm trying to figure out how to control revisions of manuals for my company. I want to have an original manual with inserted pages/chapters added to it so that it is always up-to-date. I was looking for FM to somehow capture changes for distributing to those responsible for assembling manuals (adding changes to existing content).

[Ian_B...@home_in_paris.fr]

Using the page insertion technique comes with a guarantee that many books will not be up-to-date, that any selection of books will show varying levels of updates, and within weeks of the full issue of a manual many people will have lost the pages they were sent, not yet put the pages in the manual, or put them in the wrong place. On a very important note - people have suffered serious injuries due to the failure of this process. I would advise you to fight fiercely anyone imposing this process upon you. Probably the only organization still using this faulty process is the cavalry in their "Horses - a guide to rose garden maintenance" manual.
Cheers
Ian

[Niels_Grund...@adobeforums.com]

Came across this reference last year while looking for information on Word vs. reliable autonumbering. It's from John McGhie's cheerful and informative article "Word templates - a guide to their creation".

"... manuals were produced as loose-leaf binders, and the updates were sent page by page.

"Of course, the updates never actually got 'inserted' into the binders, and after a while corporations suffered horrendously expensive accidents caused by operators using out-of-date processes. Look up Longford Disaster, Esso and Melbourne on the web and read all about how Exxon [...] managed to send a thousand million dollars and several of their staff up in a puff of smoke doing this."

[R._Va...@adobeforums.com]

I've worked in companies that tried updating manuals with pages that needed to be inserted. What usually happened is that most people didn't install the updates. Instead, they periodically ordered themselves a new, already-updated manual, then discarded their original copy of the manual along with several unopened enevelopes containing never-installed updates...