🚀 go-pugleaf

Steven,

Let's start at the beginning. Which version of FM, including point
release, are your using (use the Help > About FrameMaker... screen for
the details - look for Version No.)?

The "Import by Reference" option creates a link to the external
document and only pulls in a non-editable representation of the
contents. In your case, for it to be editable, you will need to select
the "Copy Into Document" option.

After the first window, when you've clicked on the Import button, you
should get another window that is titled either "Import Text Flow by
Copy" or "Import Text Flow by Reference", depending upon your previous
choice. The contents and options in these two windows is identical
except for the title bar.

The first option grouping is for the Text flow. A Flow in FM is where
your content resides. Typically you will want to import the "Body Page
Flow" material (indicated by the radio button control) and you can
select which of the user defined flows from the drop down list to the
right. Usually it's just flow "A". You probably can safely ignore the
flows on the Reference pages (second radio button choice here).

The next option grouping lets FM know how you want it to handle the
imported material. Your choices are:

 - to reformat the material according to the tags that you have in the
current document (and optionally remove any overrides in the incoming
file)

 - to simply pull it in as plain text and it will take on the
formatting of the current paragraph that you're importing the content
into, i.e. all imported material will be tagged with this same paratag

 - to keep (retain) the formatting that exists in the incoming file.
Any paratags with the same names will then be flagged as having
overrides. Any tags (paragraph, character or table) not defined in the
current document will be used, but not added to the respective
Catalog.

When you then hit the "Import" button (at the bottom left), the
content should come in, as FM has already "vetted" the selected file
during the first screen. You would *not* have even had the second
"Import Text Flow..." window presented if it wasn't a valid FM file.

I am assuming that you are importing into a Body page of the current
document and that you have an insertion point selected on the Body
page. Do you see any change in the page count at the bottom in your
status line? Silly question, but you know that the content in the
other FM file is really there?