how to fix crashing when PDF and procedure for cross reference?

Several things could be causing the crashing during the PDF creation process.

1. Have you applied the MS hotfix mentioned here?

http://blogs.adobe.com/techcomm/2009/07/repost_hotfix_for_framemaker.html

2. In your PDF Setup, make sure that you have Tagged PDF turned off and in the Links panel enable "Create Named Destinations for All Paragraphs".

Try it again and also make sure that you have applied all of the FM8 patches in sequence.

You can use either cross-references or hypertext links to create the jumps, though cross-refs are easier to do and maintain.

1. To insert a cross-ref to the Chapter 1 Setup section, you first would need to have Chapter 1 open along with the document that you are currently working on.

2. At the location where you want to insert the cross-reference, select the Special > Cross-Reference menu option.

3. For the first time that you use a cross-reference, you have create a format for it. In your case the "For more information, see the" and "section in" are constant strings and the section name "Setup" and "Chapter 1" are the variables.

    a) Click on the "Edit Format" button in the Reference section towards the bottom of the window. This will open a new dialogue window allowing you to create a format for use.

     b) In this window, give the format a name so that you can easily identify it, such as "More info in Chapter section".

     c) Then you have to enter in the "Defintion" line what you want the cross-ref to say, which could be (without quotes) "For more information, see the <$paratext> section in <$paranum[Chapter]>." The items in the angled brackets are building blocks used by FM to pick up content from the specified destination when you make the cross-ref. The first one <$paratext> specifies to grab the content of the paragragh that you point to (in this case it should be "Setup" section heading. The <$paranum[Chapter}> item will grab the autonumber value from the Chapter tag (or use whichever one that you have for chapter numbering at the start of each chapter).

     d) Once you're satisfied with your format, click on the Add and then Done buttons. This will save thgis format in the cross-ref catalog.

4. To actually insert the cross-ref, select the target document (e.g. Chapter 1) from the drop down list for "Dcoument:".

5. Then under the Source Type (the down arrow below the Document), make sure that you have Paragraphs selected.

6. In the left column you will see the paratags available in the Chapter 1 document.

7. Pick the paratag type that contains the Setup section title (heading 4 ?).

8. In the right-hand column you should then see all of the heading 4 tags in Chapter 1.

9. Select the Setup in this column.

10. Check that the Format line shows the one that you created earlier ("More Info in Chapter Section") and then click on the Insert button.

You're done.

If you don't like the formatting or it's picking up the wrong content, then open the cross-ref dialogue again and edit the format to get what you want.

You might want to try creating a new book file instead, there may be corruption in the old one.

It would also be helpful if you could provide information about your environment -- OS, amount of RAM, exact version of Frame (Help > About > the whole verion number) and Acrobat, if the files are local or on a server....

Are you trying to use SaveAs PDF to produce the book, or Printing to the PDF logical printer?

And finally, does the PDF of the book fail at the same place every time, or at different pages?

SaveAs PDF was known to be flakey in FM8 & still has issues with CMYK stuff in FM9. Try printing directly to the Adobe PDF printer & see how it turns out. You could also try printing to a .ps file & then manully distilling it.

8.0 has one more patch, to 8.0p277 / aka 8.0.4. It's available here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=22&platform=Windows

Yeah, importing Visio files as OLE objects is a pretty well known problem... next time it would be good to more thoroughly describe your documents when you provide environment info.

You may want to think about importing graphic files created from Visio files by reference rather than copying them into your Frame files. Works just as well and reduces the chance of problems later on.

Art

For Visio graphics, the recommended route for best quality output from FM, is to create a PDF in Visio and then import the PDF into FM. A side-step would be to use Acrobat to crop the PDF as required and then save as EPS, since FM has to convert PDFs on the fly to EPS anyway.

As Art suggests, try to avoid copying/pasting in Visio graphics (or any graphic for that matter) as this creates OLE objects, which can be problematic and have been known to bite.