Changed format and now can't copy paste from excel

I'd recommend the Scriptorium FM Essentials book that they sell on-line at their website.

Another alternative to copying and pasting from spreadsheet to Frame is, don't.

Export from the spreadsheet as PDFs, and import the PDFs as graphical objects.

We use LibreOffice (formerly OpenOffice) calc, in part because as it's a safer place to store your data than proprietary spreadsheets, but primarily because the PDF export is fast, compact and stable.

• select the cells of interest
• File > Export as PDF
• (*) selection
  (*) Lossless compression
  
• PDF/A-1

If you happen to be using FM7, don't import PDFs, however. They are unstable. Use Illustrator or Acrobat Pro to re-save them as EPS.

Unfortunately it looks like I updated all or Global changed all on some sort of format - paragraph, table designer etc. [...] However, does anyone have any idea where I might have changed something so I can change it back? A shot in the dark but after a couple of days I'm desperate. It appears I might have changed the "Store in Catalog" so it is now affecting all new timetables I open.

"Store in catalog" means "make this format tag available throughout the document". The format tag will appear in the document's format catalog, and you can apply the same format elsewhere in the document. In FrameMaker, format catalogs are part of the particular document, and changes affect only the current document. Other documents (no matter if they are open in FM or not) will not be affected unless you deliberately import formats into a document or book.

If you want to revert your working copy to the original formats, you can import formats from an intact document using File > Import > Formats, which will overwrite the current format changes. However, format tags that have been renamed or newly created will remain.

I was able to copy / paste from Excel to a table in Framemaker and now I can't.

To control how data from Excel is inserted into FM, you can use Edit > Paste Special (keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+v).

Using Paste Special, you can choose to insert the cells from Excel in "Rich Text Format". This will create a table and retain some of the original formatting from Excel. Alternatively, you can choose "Text" or "Unicode Text". This will insert no table but tab-separated text. (Afterwards, you can convert tab-separated text into a table using Table > Convert to table.)

-- As long as you can't get a training, other people on this forum surely can recommend you a good introductory book on FM. (You probably wouldn't want a German book, and I don't even remeber which was best.)

Johannes