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Known Participant
August 18, 2011
Question

When I change a tag in one chapter, how do I get it to update across all chapters?

  • August 18, 2011
  • 4 replies
  • 1119 views

Good day everyone!

I just updated a TableTitle tag. When I clicked Update All, it fixed everything in that chapter. I have 17 chapters and need the TableTitle tag to be updated across all the chapters.

How do I do that? I hope I don't have to copy the code and fix the tag in each chapter...I'm sure that is the long, unnecessary route.

Thanks in advance for your help!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    Participating Frequently
    August 24, 2011

    Hi Jessie,

    If you change anything in a catalog of characters, paragraphs or table formats, then you can update all these formats in a book (with all chapters) with "Import Formats".

    1. Open the chapter with changes.
    2. Open the book with all chapters.
    3. Select all files in this book (not the chapter with the new formats).
    4. Choose Menu > File > Import > Formats
    5. Select or de-select the options you want to update, in your case paragraph or/and table and/or character format.
    6. Click OK - all formats you changed are updated in all chapters of your book.

    - Maike

    August 18, 2011

    There are a few 3rd party utilities that can make updating single paratags across multiple chapters easier and a lot more foolproof against accidentally updating more than one anticipated.

    There is a good Tools list on http://www.leximation.com

    Known Participant
    August 23, 2011

    Thanks for the resource, Sheila! I'm checking it out...

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2011

    I just updated a TableTitle tag. When I clicked Update All, it fixed everything in that chapter.

    Presuming that by "tag" you mean Paragraph Format ...

    If you are willing to propagate all Pgf Fmts from that chapter to all book file ...

    Have at least that chapter's .fm file open.

    Go to the Book menu.

    Select all book component .fm files (or just the opther chapter files).

    File > Import > Formats ...

    [ Deselect All ]

    Import from Document: [ definingchapname.fm ]

    [ * ] Paragraph Formats

    [ Import ]

    Caution: this imports ALL the pgf defs to all the other files.

    This is can be a problem for covers, TOC, IX, etc.

    Known Participant
    August 18, 2011

    YES!

    It worked.

    Thanks Van and Error. (Thanks for being so dependable, Error)

    This is what I was doing wrong: I was going File>Import formats but hadn't selected the files, so I was wondering why nothing was changing. Ha! Small steps.

    Follow up question: When I'm in the Import Formats box, why do I selected just the Paragraph Formats and not the Table Formats box when it is a table format that I just fixed? That's another thing I was doing--selecting Table Formats and then updating.

    This forum is the best thing that has happened to my FrameMaker life!

    Bob_Niland
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    August 18, 2011

    When I'm in the Import Formats box, why do I selected just the Paragraph  Formats and not the Table Formats box when it is a table format that I  just fixed? That's another thing I was doing--selecting Table Formats  and then updating.

    Had we grasped that you were updating table fmts too, we would have said to select both.

    Whether or not a table has a TableTitle, and where it is located, is part of the Table Format.

    But the definition of the text formatting of the title is defined by Paragraph Format "TableTitle", well, by default anyway.

    Van Kurtz
    Inspiring
    August 18, 2011

    Jessie,

    Open the file that has the correct TableTitle tag. Then select all the files in the book file, or at least all the files you want the tag to be in. Then select File > Import > Formats. In the dialog, select only Paragraph formats and the name of the correct file. This copies ALL the paragraph formats from the selected file into the selected files, copying over those with the same name.

    If you do NOT want all the paragraph formats copied into the files in the book, then you will have to open each file and redefine the TableTitle tag as you did in the original file.

    Van