ParagraphFormatTag vs FormatChangeList

Because my start with FrameMaker (1993!) was on the unstructured side, I still prefer to reference paragraph, character, and table formats in my EDDs. There are several other reasons that I prefer to do so:

1) Many of my clients are transitioning from unstructured to structured FrameMaker and want me to leverage their existing unstructured templates. Also, they may want control over their template's formats and they can still modify the look and feel without having to mess with the EDD.

2) Referring to formats instead of doing formatting in the EDD keeps them smaller and more manageable.

3) With the formats approach, I can have a single EDD that works with more than one FrameMaker template.

I deviate from this in certain instances; for example, I may have a "start" attribute on title elements to control page and column breaks, and I will do this in the EDD instead of having separate paragraph formats. I may also do this for lists where spacing may be different for first or last elements.

One thing I miss with this approach is the formatting "inheritance" that can be done through EDD formatting.

Quintin,

   Whether to use paragraph formats defined in the paragraph catalog, formatting properties specified within a particular element definition, declared format change lists, or some combination is often a preference of the EDD developer. One consideration is whether you are using any tools (for example, translation tools or indexing tools) that are based on paragraph tags.  When an element can occur in numerous contexts and you want PDF bookmarks for some but not all of them, it is sometimes easier to define the bookmarks with paragraph tags rather than elements and context labels.

   My own habit is almost always to specify formatting directly in a format rule. I often use variables for strings (such as indent values) that are used repeatedly. I do define FormatChangeLists, but only when they will be used more than once.

       --Lynne