Jump to content

Questions on Overflow pages


sschardan

Recommended Posts

I have a potential upcoming project that will require overflow pages, and I have several issues and questions:

 

1 - The overflow pages I will be adding are a duplicate of the first two body pages that print as a front and a back. Page 1 is variable, page 2 is static. The only way I have been able to add these pages in pairs in the past is to place an overflow text box on the static page that is too small to contain any text whatsoever. If I don't, the static page will not print and I get an error message that states something like the overflow page requires an overflow text box. The annoyance is that I then get error messages that the text won't fit in the said text box that is intentionally too small to hold text. Am I missing something?

 

2 - The last I have seen the following mentioned is a post from 2011, and at that time there was no solution. This job is pulling data of widely varying lengths from an external data file. There are two different categories of products that need to be listed, each within their own 1.5 to 2 inch tall space of a long-standing preformatted form that the client will not change. When the text overflows, it needs to go to its own specific text box on the overflow form. What I have done in the past is designate two separate overflow forms, one for each category of product. When both boxes require overflow pages, that winds up with a lot of extra pages. What would be nice is to designate an overflow to a specific text box instead of an overflow page in general. That way both categories can overflow to the same overflow page and within their specific category box. Has there been any new developement in this area?

 

3 - When overflow pages are used, is it possible to number them 1 of 5, 2 of 5, or 5 of 35, 6 of 35, etc? And then when overflow is not used, have it be numbered 1 of 1?

 

4 - At the bottom of each form, in a different area from the above mentioned boxes, are fields containing totals. Can these boxes print on the body page if overflow is not used, or only print on the last page of overflow when overflow is used?

 

Thank you in advance for any and all suggestions.

 

Mac OS 10.9

FP Creator 9.2.31

Acrobat XI

Adobe CC

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have been successful in solving 3 by manipulating the OnPageCount and OnPageNumber rules and using «$pagenum» and «$pagecount» to print the appropriate page numbers.

 

I have also solved 4 by comparing OnPageCount and OnPageNumber and having the totals print when they are equal and the rule is evaluated for each text flow.

 

What I am still curious about is answers to 1 and 2 if someone could be so kind.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can specify "In Pairs" as the "Add Pages" mode in the Overflow Options dialog. But you need to specify two actual Overflow pages, and those both need to have an overflow destination frame, and if you don't want to see any error messages about text not fitting, then the destination frames on both pages have to be large enough to contain some text.

 

I guess my first suggestion would be to just ignore those messages in the log file, as long as the output is correct. That's really all that matters at the end of the day, right? Although I do appreciate the desire to have a "clean" run. (One of the ideas that's been floating around in my head for a long time is the ability to specify that particular error or warning messages be either suppressed or elevated to errors/aborts, like you can do with a #pragma in C++, which would offer more granular control than just the somewhat obtuse "Errors of this type" list on the Advanced tab of the Composition Settings. But so far that hasn't become a high priority.)

 

Beyond that, I think you could do something like make that "1.5 to 2 inch tall space of a long-standing preformatted form" you mention into a repeatable component, which could then be repeated as necessary, and I think that if the overflow destination on the second page isn't large enough to hold an instance of the repeatable component, it will move on to the next page without any error message. Or maybe you could use text measurement to manually break up the text into the individual frames on the pages.

 

Regarding your comment, "What would be nice is to designate an overflow to a specific text box instead of an overflow page in general": This is actually possible, to have multiple overflow destinations on the same Overflow page, but that's not something you can specify in the Acrobat plug-in GUI. It's actually a holdover feature from when FusionPro was known as DL Formatter, and was a plug-in to FrameMaker, but that functionality still exists in the composition engine. However, it can only be accessed by modifying the DIF file outside of the FusionPro Acrobat plug-in, and that kind of workflow requires FusionPro VDP Producer API (FP Server). Even then, the tagging to do that is pretty complicated.

 

I might be able to come up with some other ideas as well, although this is getting a bit outside the scope of what can be done here on the forum. That said, if you posted your job, it might be easier to come up with something than it is by thinking about it abstractly.

 

I suppose an enhancement could be made to FusionPro to do what you need, without the error messages, but given that the only two requests I know for such a feature are yours and the one you mention from 2011, it's unlikely that will be implemented anytime soon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...