If I change text in a template does it change in every topic which base upon the template?

Thank you Scott.

Hi Nina...

You can change the default "topic" template to modify the formatting of the table formats, or you can add a new table format that include the formatting that you want to use. I'm not sure how you'd get some consistent text in one column .. this could be controlled by a paragraph style that includes autonumber text (or prefix/suffix text). You could also modify the EDD so that a certain cell in a table that uses a specified formatting would add this text. None of this seems like a good approach to me, but I suppose that if this situation is very common, it might be OK. Note that any text added by a template or style, is not really in the XML file .. this is only going to exist for documents rendered through FM (like a PDF).

I think you should probably look into using a conref for this type of situation.

If I may mention a couple of plugins that I've developed, they may be useful for this situation ..

- StructureSnippets .. this plugin lets you define a library of "snippets" of elements that you can easily insert as needed.

- DITA-FMx .. provides a feature called "element templates" to use when creating a new DITA file. You select the template (that you've set up) when creating a new file, and the new file contains the structure.

These are both available from http://www.leximation.com

Cheers,

...scott

Scott Prentice
Leximation, Inc.
www.leximation.com