PDF bookmarks under wrong chapter

[BobH3]

This is a nagging issue that's been affecting myself and the other writers in my company, and nobody is sure how to go about tracking down the problem. After finishing work on a FrameMaker book and saving to PDF, the bookmarks in the PDF are all shifted into the previous chapter. The contents and TOC are not affected, only the bookmark hierarchy in the PDF. As far as I know, all of us are running Windows XP SP3 and Frame Maker 10.

Here's a basic example of the problem. Each chapter is its own document.

What it should be:

Chapter 1

-Ch1 Heading 1

-Ch1 Heading 2

Chapter 2

-Ch2 Heading 1

-Ch2 Heading 2

Chapter 3

-Ch3 Heading 1

-Ch3 Heading 2

Chapter 4

-Ch4 Heading 1

-Ch4 Heading 2

What I get:

Ch1 Heading 1*

Ch1 Heading 2*

Chapter 1

-Ch2 Heading 1

-Ch2 Heading 2

Chapter 2

-Ch3 Heading 1

-Ch3 Heading 2

Chapter 3

-Ch4 Heading 1

-Ch4 Heading 2

Chapter 4

*Notice that these headings are now promoted to the same level as the chapters.

If it can't be fixed, it's not a big deal since we can just correct the bookmark order in Acrobat. It's just a matter of remembering to do that every single time.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Are your Chapter headings in a table or a separate flow/text frame?

[BobH3]

The chapter headings are in a separate text frame.

And just a FYI, I'm not very experienced with adjusting layouts and such in frame maker. I've only been working off of the other writers' existing templates.

[Arnis_Gubins]

The chapter headings are most likely in a different "flow".

If you turn on your VIew > Symbols, is there an end-of-flow mark § visible at the end of the chapter heading or in the textframe used to hold it?

If you right click on the chapter heading textframe and select object properties, what is the name of the flow used here? Also is the Autoconnect option turned on for that flow?

[BobH3]

There's an end of flow marker.

The tag is Chapter Title, and Autoconnect is off.

[Arnis_Gubins]

You'll need to fix up the template to resolve this issue (bad planning & design on the template developer's part). You'll have to rename the flow to match the main flow in the document and connect the heading textframe to the start of the flows on what I presume is your chapter first master page. This will have to be done for the templates that everyone is using to fix this type of problem.

Since you mentioned that you don't have much experience with FM layouts, I don't recommend trying to fix it yourself. If available, the original designer should fix it. If not, get whomever is the most experienced with FM to connect the frames on the Master pages in the correct order.