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Here's are a few ways to fake "conditional text" if your
software doesn't explicitly support this feature but does
support "nonprinting text" or style-based search and
replace:
[Warning: These are kludges. Use at your own risk!]
Start by creating different style names for the parts you
don't want to print in each version. For example, let's say
you're doing English and French in the same file, but only
want to output one of the two languages. Create a style
called "body text English" and another called "body text
French", and do the same for any other styles you'll need
(e.g., headings). Then, to create a French-only document,
edit the properties of all the styles with English names so
that they are defined as nonprinting. Voila! You'll have to
test this for each software package you use, since there
are likely to be different implementations of this feature
in each package.
Another possible solution is to make a backup copy of the
file, then do a global search and replace based on
paragraph styles: replace the English styles with a single
space, or with nothing (thus doing a "global search and
delete"). You can even do this manually by scrolling
through the file with the style names visible and deleting
the ones that don't belong.
On the whole, you're better off with something like Frame
that explicitly and automatically supports conditional
text, but if you don't have Frame, you can probably fake it
well enough to get by in a pinch.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
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