🚀 go-pugleaf

> 1)My book is riddled with redundant paragraph/character formats and overrides on nearly every
page.
> 2)My book has inconsistent file, directory, and graphic naming conventions.
> 3)Many graphics are of different filetypes (wmf, jpg, tif), and a large minority of them are
embedded, not referenced.

None of these issues are related, and they can be addressed individually.
Try really hard to convert from embedded graphics to referenced.

> Q: Regarding cleanup, should I finalize my content issues first (standardizing formatting
> and graphics) and then establish solid file/directory/graphic structure and naming
> conventions second, or is the other way around a better way to go?

I don't see any problems with either order, but if you have the time on your hands
and you wish to make a thorough clean-up, I would start with the file stucture.
That will build a solid non-confusing base to attack the other issues.

> Q:Can any of you recommend file/directory/graphic structure and naming conventions
> that have been proven successful? We update our manual annually, ...

You don't give us much to go on regarding your current documentation, but anyway:

If you have more than one manual, create separate directories for each
and keep a single book file in each directory. If you need to cross-reference
between manuals, you can still do so between the directories, provided you
settle on a directory structure and file naming conventions first.

Make sure the file structure of the book makes sense, for instance that each
"chapter" (or whatever your manual consists of) is contained in a single file,
as well as title pages, front matter, and back matter have dedicated files.
Don't put several chapters in one file or split a chapter into several files.
If you end up with many files with just a few pages, or few files with many
pages (say, over 50 or 100), you should reconsider the chapter/file structure.

Try to avoid more than one TOC in a book, such as chapter-level TOCs. This is
much harder to maintain and seldom give readers any benefit.

Put all FM files (chapters, etc.) on the same directory level as the book file,
unless there are a large number of files (say, over 30 or 50), that in turn are
organized into "sections" or "parts". Then it may make sense to create sub-dirs
for each part, but then maintenance is a problem if you move chapters around.

Put imported graphics and text insets into a separate sub-directory in the
book file directory. You may create several sub-dirs if there are many files
or if you wish to organize them according to types or formats or whatever.
Just don't keep all files (FM, graphics, etc.) in the same directory!

Do NOT name chapter files according to their chapter number (e.g. "chap1.fm")
or graphic files according to their figure number (e.g. "fig1.gif"). You never
know when you need to move a chapter or figure around.
Instead, name them according to their contents or usage, e.g. introduction.fm,
overview.fm, functions.fm, mainwindow.gif, workflow.eps, etc.
Only stay with the 8+3 filename convention if there's a compelling reason
to do so. Maybe you'll put all your files on a CD, or your company or users
may have file systems that don't support longer file names? Otherwise, use
descriptive names, but still try to keep them reasonably short, e.g.
cmdoptions.fm instead of "command line options.fm".
Try to avoid spaces and other special characters in file and directory names.
They tend to mess up things with some utilities or in file transfers between
file systems. Underscores are usually OK to separate "words" in a file name.

A few advice to get you started, perhaps?


--
/Thomas Michanek, FrameMaker/UNIX/MIF expert
mailto:Thomas.Michanek@telia.com
http://go.to/framers/