General Advice and Question on Saving Book Files

I am still relatively new to FrameMaker. I attended a one on one course 12 months ago for two days. When I attended this course I was totally oblivious to the features of FM, it was totally foreign software. I had looked through the User Guide and as part of the course received Classroom in a Book. I have not spent a lot of time on FM in the last 12 months as I still have to produce manuals in the old format. The changeover is a huge project.
I have searched this forum many times and found the answers I have needed to many of my questions and learnt so much that I had not fully understood.
I would just like to confirm now with the users of this forum that I am going about my project in converting to FrameMaker in the right way and I have a question on saving books etc.
I have Operator and Service manuals for four machines (with variations between each machine and then variations between each of those basic models). Parts of the Operator and Service manuals are interchangeable.
I want to be able to single source my material and I am setting up an Excel spreadsheet which will breakdown each section of both manuals. Once completed when a machine is ordered the Excel spreadsheet will produce the details of the files needed to complete a book (manual). There will still be work needed on the book files before the manual can be produced.
My files are double sided with each Chapter starting on the right hand page and I am using variables and conditional text. The manuals contain columns, graphics, tables etc.
I have done test runs and have managed to accomplish the layout in PDF that I want for the final manuals which will be printed. I am only working on four machines at this stage, once this is set up others will be added or I may have to set up another lot of single source files.
Am I on the right track?
My specific question is that currently I use master files for each machine which are updated as needed. These files are then saved to another folder and identified by a Serial Number and Customer. The serialised files are then saved to PDF. I would like to continue this process as in the future the manuals for that specific machine may need to be revised (i.e. Rev. 0 to Rev. 1 and so on).
So basically I have all my single source files from which I produce a book file and save it to an appropriate folder which identifies its Serial Number and Customer. I don’t know if I have missed something very simple but I want these serialised books to remain as is, I do not want them updated when I make a change to my single source documents. I want to be able to produce my manuals for any number of machines from my single source without changing the book files that have already produced a manual. Is this possible?
I am using FrameMaker 7.2 b144.
I hope this posting provides a clear view of what I am trying to achieve.
Many thanks in advance for any advice and answers that are provided.
PS This is the first time I have ever posted to any forums.

It sounds like you want to be able to open the book files and print without updating...
This isn't the case. Each book will need to be updated before output.
The reason is that your pagecount (and thus any toc, index, and xref's) will be different in each book and thus will need to be updated.
The books will still need a opening and updating prior to output, but you could easily (cheaply) script that process so that you could batch output the books.
-Matt
Matt Sullivan
director of training
roundpeg, inc.
http://blogs.roundpeg.com
http://twitter.com/mattrsullivan

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My complaints and Questions MP4 M4V video files and other complaints
I have been scratching my head as to how to fix my problem and I found some answers and some questions along the way. First of all, I have a video that should be correctly formatted for my iPod. Its specs are:
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Video Dimensions: 352x264
Video Codec: H.264
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Ok, back to the problem of the forum.
From what I can see from http://www.apple.com/ipodclassic/specs.html this file falls in line of everything required in order to be able to play on my iPod. It plays in iTunes fine but will NOT sync with my iPod. I get an annoying message that states, “Some of the Songs and videos in your iTunes library, including “BlaBlaBlaiPondFixYourJunkBlaBlaBla”, were not copied to the iPod “My iPod” because they cannot be played on this iPod.” Why oh why can iTunes play this video file but my iPod cant. Especially when the specs on Apple’s website say it can.
So that was bugging me for a LONG time until I found my “Create iPod or iPhone version” option in the “Advanced” heading. Thank goodness this made my files playable on my iPod. Extremely LONG wait though. I know that other programs convert it in ½ the time. But times not to important as long as it gets done, (would be very convenient if it was faster though **Problem and suggestion**)
Ok, now that I have used the “Create iPod or iPhone version” option it has slowly but surly converted my video. Ok, here is my main problem, the new file which is the result of the conversions information is as follows:
Kind: MPEG-4 video file
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So basically it has made my file bigger *not a bonus in my book* greatly increased my Bit Rate *another interesting feature*, and I think the biggest change it has changed it from an .mp4 to an m4v.
Why does it need to be an .m4v I could have sworn some of my videos were or are in mp4 which shouldn’t matter anyway because I was under the impression that iPods could play mp4 files. So that’s my biggest complaint and question. Why can my 80GB classic iPod not play my MP4 files and why am I forced to convert them??
This conversion also creates 2 files in iTunes when I am done which is annoying because I have to go into my files info and look to see what file is the mp3 in order to remove it. Very annoying I can open my iPod options and see the files and some are faded (the ones it can not play) why can’t I remove them from that area.Suggestion Apple please make files that cannot be played on my iPod stand out some how for easier cleaning Suggestion. Thank you.
Speaking of cleaning iPods, when I moved my entire library to an external drive I was faced with a terrible problem. “This file could not be found, would you like to locate file”, I was faced with this annoying message at least 600 times. Now I am glad that iTunes has a little “!” mark to show dead links so that you do some minor cleaning, Good Job iTunes No compliant there. However iTunes has no way of selecting all the broken files for major cleaning (like in my case). Going through and deleting over 600 files 1 by 1 is extremely time consuming and annoying. **Suggestion Apple please add more cleaning features for organizing iTunes**.
Ok, speaking of organization now, another problem that appeared when converting my video files was that it put my new videos into the location where I have all my songs (my external hard drive) why can’t it put the new files in the locations of the original file? I have my computer highly organized and my original files were in that drive in that folder for a reason. If I could open my original file and skip the conversion, my iTunes would go to that specific folder to access the file which is fine. But now these new conversion files are elsewhere taking up space and disorganizing my computer. True I can go into the new location and move the files to where I want them (original location) but I don’t think I should have to hunt them down, copy, move, delete ect etc for all these files over and over. Very annoying, time consuming and should be unnecessary. **Suggestion Make file creation and location more customizable, and user friendly, your customers will love you for it**.
Well since I have gotten into Apples iTunes and iPod problems that I have had to face I might as well bring up one or two more problems and suggestions. About a month after purchasing my iPod a sibling bought one as well. His however is way more convenient then mine. I suppose he has a 5th gen. so here is my question: why does he have a search option and I don’t!!!! Why does he get more features every so often and I don’t?! Why can’t Apple write some software for us classic guys which got the iPods going! It’s very annoying when I have to spend more time looking for the song then I spend actually listening to it, when he can pull his up in like 3-6 seconds? I highly doubt the hardware between our iPods is that dissimilar and even if they are why cant software be written for us. **Suggestion treat all your customers good not just the newer ones, and make some more features for the classics like me and my iPod.” We will be grateful for it I promise.
Ok, I am almost done. Let me just recap my questions, I know my post is kind of lengthy.
#1. Why can’t my iPod play MP3 video files? And why do I have to convert to almost all the same settings except changing it from an mp4 to an m4v. according to Apples own site I should be able to play .m4v .mp4 and .mov files!! Note: remember iTunes plays them fine but my iPod will not.
#2. Would be much more convenient to be able to copy the information from the windows in iTunes so that problems and trouble shooting would be much easier. A little check on off options in iTunes advanced settings would be terrific.
#3. Why is the conversion so slow? Please speed it, you have the power. Convenience is the thing that sells products.
#4. Files that cannot be played on the current iPod need to be easier recognized for simpler cleaning.
#5. Also make an easier way to select all dead link files for faster cleaning, deleting, etc. This one is important.
#6. Make a user friendly way to change where my files are going to end up once I convert them for iPod more options and better customizable settings are need.
#7. One of the most important is ADD A SEARCH OPTION. I and we classics will LOVE Apple for it.
For you readers, I apologize for the long post, and any grammatical errors you might find throughout it. These are problems that I have faced with these programs and hardware and I wanted to make sure they got acknowledged and hopefully addressed. Any information about why I cannot play MP4 Video files on my iPod would be the best. If anything in my post gets answered that’s the one I want most. Will save me a lot of hassle.
Thank you all and I look forward to your suggestions and comments. All are welcome and appreciated.
Sincerely,
Bond, James

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