Sorry for my ignorance but I've been trying to create a TOC for four sections in an 8-section book and I've had

no luck at all. I need the TOC for those chapters so that I can normalize topics and consolidate duplicate sections.

For your own sake, please read through all the questions before trying to answer them. I'd try to figure this stuff

out myself if there were any documentation. I've got a what is allegedly a real user guide on its way from Amazon,

(Mastering the Basics (and more) of Adobe FrameMaker 10), so if that's likely to help, don't bother with the questions.

I have done my best to create reference pages for the TOC file that specify what I want to do headers in the four chapters mentioned above.

So:

1) Is it even possible to create a partial TOC as described above?  (If the answer to this question is 'no' you can skip the rest of the questions.)

2) I've been trying to create this partial TOC by selecting the four sections, then doing ADD>Table of Contents. If it's possible to do

   what I want, is this how you would do it?

3) I started with some custom header paragraphs, along with a some standard e.g. ones. I created after a few false starts

    the <$paratext> <$pagenum> A characterics I wanted, then did ADD>Table of Contents.

4) At this point, I fixed each problem as FM reported them. These included:

FM complaint about unresolved references, even though the Cross-reference pod said there were none in any of the open files. So I

deleted the XREFs completely and left [TBS] in their place. When they were gone, FM stopped complaining.

FM complaint about being unable to open files because of missing fonts, even though all the files were open and FM had supposedly replaced the fonts.

I permanently assigned new fonts with the font pod.

I made changes to address a reported problem as they happened, then tried to regenerate a new TOC, When I tried to regenerate the original TOC file,

(the one that had my header paragraph definitions), FM demanded I create a new TOCn rather than the original TOC file, because it wouldn't overwrite the original.

I tried all this stuff again after I replaced all the headers (custom and standard) with "Header1TOC", "Header2TOC" and so on. BTW, why does

FM label a paragraphs with an asterisk.

5) At this point, I started generating all of the ever-increasing TOCn files. FM then complained either that the newer ones didn't have any Master Page Table maps, or that it

    couldn't find the previous TOCn file (not surprising as when I tried to delete the later TOCn files, FM would say there was no such file, even though it showed in the

    list of book sections.

What are some of the (doubtless) many things it appears I'm doing wrong? Where do I go to find out how to do it right?

Cheers,

JP

<begin rant>

I find it ironic (dare I say infuriating?) that the tool of choice for many technical writers is FM, yet FM

comes with no technical user documentation to speak of.

I regard the help file as a cruel joke. It reminds me of how you get a bank loan. You'll get

a loan if you prove to the banker that you don't need it. Similarly, the help file gives you useful information

only if  you already know the topic.

Sorry to do my venting here. Even though the black flies are out, this has not been

a great way to spend a sunny Saturday.

<end rant>