Use of "record tag"

I'm hoping that Dan or Alex can give some explanation of this feature and possible show an example as well. I was leafing through the manual during some free time and came across a feature called a "record tag" which allows you to change the language and the .dif file for a specific record. I can understand the changing of the language and what that might entail, but would you please give an example of the changing of a .dif file?

Does that tag call a completely new and separate FusionPro template to be used in conjunction with this one? For example, if the main template you are composing is called "Template_A.pdf" and for the first 3 records in the data run you use the "Template_A.dif" file, then for some reason record 4 needs the totally different layout and features that you have coded into "Template_B.pdf" can you temporarily change the .dif file to refer to "Template_B.dif" and place that output from "Template_B.pdf" within an opening in "Template_A.pdf"?

I don't know if I am understanding this or not - and I think I'm not. That would be way too easy to accomplish what I need FusionPro to do. Also where is this called - OnJobStart, OnRecordStart or can it be envoked within a text rule?

Thanks.

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Does that tag call a completely new and separate FusionPro template to be used in conjunction with this one? For example, if the main template you are composing is called "Template_A.pdf" and for the first 3 records in the data run you use the "Template_A.dif" file, then for some reason record 4 needs the totally different layout and features that you have coded into "Template_B.pdf" can you temporarily change the .dif file to refer to "Template_B.dif" and place that output from "Template_B.pdf" within an opening in "Template_A.pdf"?

Yes, with certain caveats, listed below.

Also where is this called - OnJobStart, OnRecordStart or can it be envoked within a text rule?

The <record> tag is valid only in a Tagged Markup input file. This tagged markup file has to be the main input file for the job. It won't work in a flat (delimited) input file, a secondary data file, a text resource, or a rule.

Furthermore, as the Tags Reference Guide notes, the "format" attribute is valid only in batch mode, i.e. in FusionPro Server (or FP Direct) jobs composed via the command-line FusionPro.exe. It won't have any effect if you're composing interactively in Acrobat (FP Desktop).

There are a few other caveats: Only fonts collected via Assets.dat for the very first DIF file will be loaded; so all the DIF files should use the same set of fonts, or fonts installed on the FP Server machine. Only the layout/format in the DIF file (i.e. the frames, text styles, colors, etc.) are loaded from the new format; Data Definition (.DEF file) stuff like rules and resources are not loaded (although you can specify a completely different set of data fields and values in each record in a tagged markup input file). There are a few other things I can't recall at the moment.

With those caveats in mind, if you are composing a job with a tagged markup input file via FusionPro Server, then yes, if you add the "format" attribute to a <record> tag, it will indeed use a completely new and separate DIF file (FusionPro template, or format) for the composition of that record. This allows you to "gang" records from (for the most part) completely unrelated jobs together in a single composition.