Inconsistent Conditional Text Settings Message When Making a PDF

[stummeay]

I'm working in FM 11 and get a "Use Condition Indicators setting is inconsistent" error message when printing my book as a PDF. I have two child books in a parent book, so my book structure looks like this:

I've been trying to fix this all day and tried mif washing to delete the stuff shown below, but it didn't work:

So I started from scratch: I opened each .fm file separately (not from within the book, but the file itself) and deleted all conditions. Sometimes I had to delete them from the Master Page in order for them to stay deleted. (Not sure why, because those conditions were not on my Master Page, but it was the only way the conditions would stay deleted.) Then I updated each of my child books. The child books print to PDF without errors. I clicked on each child book and selected all files in the book, and no conditions were present. Good.

Then I made a new book and added the front cover, checked the parent book for conditions and there were still none. Good. As I added each child book and finally the back cover, I kept checking the parent book for conditions are there were none.

I then told the parent book to read page numbers from the files, and updated my parent book. That's when I got these conditions:

But as soon as I click on the parent book window again, those conditions go away. I think those conditions have something to do with the TOCs???

Anyway, I then printed to a PDF and I got the Use Conditions error message. When I show conditions for the parent book, nothing shows up, so why am I getting this message?

Thanks for your help.

[Arnis_Gubins]

It's not an error, but rather a warning that (at least) one of the files has different Conditonal settings applied with respect to the first file found in the book, e.g. the first file may show "X", but one of the other files hides "X". No need to do anything with the Condition catalog(s).

The simplest way to make the conditions consistent is to apply the conditional setting to all files in each component book (i.e. select all files in a book and then use the View menu to set the Conditions) and then do the same for the master book.

[stummeay]

Thanks for your reply, Arnis.

I must be missing something because there are no conditions in either child book or the parent book.

I don't understand why I'm getting the warning when I'm not seeing ANY conditions.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Check the "Show Condition Indicators" settings, as it may be ON in one file and OFF in another, even without any conditions being present. You can apply the setting at the book level to all files to override such an instance.

[stummeay]

I'm missing something I guess. I still cannot find anything inconsistent anywhere in any of these files or books. For this particular project, I'm confident the content of my files is displaying correctly, as there are no conditions. In other books though, I do have multiple conditions that will be shown / hiding, and I'd be nervous getting that inconsistency message in those cases. Guess I'll keep looking. Thanks for your help.

[Arnis_Gubins]

If the "Show Condition Indicators" switch settings are consistent, then it's possible that something is munged in your book file (it tends to store the settings of the first file encountered in a book and uses his to check against all others). You could try re-creating a new book file to see if this inconsistency gets resolved.

[stummeay]

I already tried making a new book without success. I'm giving up on this one for the time being. Thanks for your help.

[Mike-Hardy]

Open a single document and set the Conditional Text how you believe it should be throughout all of your documents. Open the book file(s) that are causing a problem. For each book file:

1. Select all documents in the book
2. Choose File > Import > Formats
3. Set the Import from Document to the document that you have just set up
4. Click Deselect All
5. Check Conditional Text Settings
6. Click Import

This imports the Conditional Text Settings from the document that you set up, into all the documents in the book. The documents should now have consistent settings. and the error no longer show. The above has worked for me in the past, albeit with a consistent set of conditions across all books.

You can use the same method for warnings about inconsistent colors.

[stummeay]

Thanks for the comment, Mike, but it didn't work; I'm still getting my inconsistent conditional text settings message. It also did not work for the colors. I delete them, import them from a "good" file, add the files to a brand new book (I've tried it multiple ways) and they always come back. Very frustrating. My only saving grace is that I'm confident my individual files are showing the correct conditions, so I'm just ignoring the error message. Don't like doing that, but I can't seem to find a way around it. Thanks for offering a suggestion.

[Arnis_Gubins]

Note, an inconsistency isn't an error - it's just something that is set differently between files. It may or may not affect the content that you have.

Colours that keep coming back, after being deleted, are usually present in an imported graphic (usually imported by copy instead of reference).