TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: More on "conditional text" From:Christopher Knight <knight -at- ADA -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 30 Jul 1997 12:09:41 PDT
Hidden text is not the same as conditional text. Conditional text is
controlled by a variable. In the application I mentioned in my previous
posting, I defined a variable ForDOS and a variable ForUNIX. Text which
was for DOS only, I grouped into a field controlled by "IF ForDos".
Similar for text only for UNIX. Text which was common to both you
leave alone.
Hidden text is just ... hidden text. If you wanted to, you could turn on
the printing of hidden text to accomplish a pale version of conditional
text, but you could have side effects. For example, in Word index
entries are hidden, so enabling the printing of hidden text would also
print the index codes. Also, at most you could have one condition this
way.
True conditional text allows for multiple conditions, and you just change
the state of the variable(s) to produce the different outputs. BTW Word
requires that fields be "updated", whereas FrameMaker does this for you.
Hope this helps.
TECHWR-L (Technical Communication) List Information: To send a message
to 2500+ readers, e-mail to TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU -dot- Send commands
to LISTSERV -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU (e.g. HELP or SIGNOFF TECHWR-L).
Search the archives at http://www.documentation.com/ or search and
browse the archives at http://listserv.okstate.edu/archives/techwr-l.html
