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> Richard Combs replied to William Sherman:
>
> "I mentioned earlier an alternative method using text insets. I think
> it's more cumbersome and has some disadvantages (such as no control over
> page breaks), so I won't go into detail. But briefly, instead of
> including the shared-content files in each book, insert each of them as
> a text inset into its own "shell" file in each book. The "shell" would
> contain the section title (and a book-specific introduction, if
> appropriate), and its master pages would be used (I'd still use
> variables for those, as described above). Strip the section title out of
> the shared-content file and import it (by reference) into the "shell"
> file for it in each book. "
>
>
> This is what I do. However, I use Insets Plus from West St. Consulting
> to manage my insets instead of native FrameMaker - much more civilized.
> I used to reuse entire chapters (as in Richard's first suggestion), but
> was constantly tripping over updating the variables. Also, some text was
> a chapter in one book and an appendix in another, which messed up
> heading numbering. Using the shell chapter with inset text solves these
> problems.
InsetPlus is the structure-based solution I had in mind when I said "there may be other approaches in a DITA/XML context that don't rely on FrameMaker functionality," but I couldn't recall the name or the company name, and it was way too late in the evening to research it. :-} Thanks, Fred!
