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> Each tool has its own bill of material(BOM)and item number. When the
procedure
> discusses the tool and its parts, each part is shown with item (item #)
and part
> number (P/N#####). If I can somehow devise a way to xref or link each item
and
> part number to the BOM (and drawing for that matter) and have them somehow
> magically change in the document whenever the BOM or drawing changes,I
would
> be happy.
There is nothing inherently difficult about this. It is simply a matter or
running a query against those external databases as part of your document
build process. Assuming that they have query interfaces (which they probably
do) then it really comes down to the ability of your document build system
to launch such queries and integrate the results. If you are using DTP
software for authoring this may be difficult. If you use a markup based
solution, it could be a simple as using text entities in your document where
you want the magical changes and then writing a database query to build your
entity files. If your DTP software supports any kind of text inserts or
variable resolution from an external file in a known format, you may be able
do the same thing that way.
---
Mark Baker
Analecta Communications
www.analecta.com
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