Bad Record Index Pm5

Date: Sat, 02 Jul 94 18:35:15 PDT From: Paul Brians <BRIANS@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU> Subject: Preventing and Solving PageMaker Bad Record Index Errors When I recently had a PageMaker 5.0 file go belly-up on me because of a "'Bad Record Index'" error, I collected many tips on dealing with this ominous problem which I thought I would share. I am sending you a detailed set of instructions which may be of use to others for placing in the archives. Dealing with "Bad Record Index" errors in PageMaker. The main points are these: Prevention: 1. Update to PM 5.0a (but do turn off ALL inits first; the installer is a killer otherwise). 2. In Preferences, make sure "Save smaller" is checked. 3. Try to keep files small--30 pages or so. Divide longer projects into shorter files. 4. Be careful to be consistent when you apply styles in Word for documents you will be importing into PM. Don't create two different styles with the same name. 5. When typing directly into PM, always assign what you type one of your styles. 6. Never click-create a text block in PM without typing something, a space, at least. THEN you can delete it. Repair (test your document after trying each one): The first time you get the error message, save the document as another document. The new copy may be fixed. Hold down the shift and option keys while choosing Hyphenation. The document will be searched for problems. One beep means no problem, two means a problem or problems was repaired, three means an unrepaired problem. This is the only solution offered in the User's Manual, and doesn't seem to work very often. Command-click on each style name in the STyle palette to bring up the Edit styles dialogue box, then hit Return (or press OK). If you get an error message with one of them, you've found a corrupted style. Then command-click on "No style" and type the name of the bad style, exactly, except for any plus signs or asterisks). Use save as. (This tip from "Real World PageMaker 5.0: Industrial Strength Techniques," p. 253, from Random House--a great book.) Find any temp files with names like "aldtmpXX" (where XX are sequential numbers) and open them with PM. They may be earlier versions that are not yet damaged. If you have linked text or graphics, go to Links in the File Menu and break all links to the original. Follow the instructions below in the section called "CompuServe BADRIX.TXT" to remove any corrupted styles. This was the only thing that worked for me. As a last desperate measure, create a new publication and copy and paste your stories one by one from the old publication; though if the old pub was created by placed stories created elsewhere, it might be almost as easy to recreate the document from scratch, particularly in PM 4.2, which doesn't allow two documents open at once. Here are copies (slightly edited) of the documents and correspondence I collected, so you can see where this advice is coming from and get its full context. -- Via Usenet…