After copy&paste from Word, FM Paragraph Style Color Attribute Ignored

I'm a relitive newbe too, but I think I know what ther're talking about. Just don't ask me to explain it.

Turn on view "text symbols" and play with it.

Arnis, I don't see the advantage of a paratag over Insert Table, which is one step rather than two. The inserted table has the paratag for text going into the single cell, and the table/cell itself is defined as I want it.

In any event, thank you, gentlemen, for helping out with this. I will no doubt be back with more questions ;-)

regards,

Steven
____________________________
--Stranger in a Strange Land

Steven,

In Word, tables are IN a paragraph; thus, the paragraph sign for the paragraph that "contains" the table displays AFTER the table.

In FrameMaker, tables are objects that "hang" from the preceding paragraph. If you show text symbols, you will see a character (I think it is a T) just before the paragraph sign, which is BEFORE the table. This character represents the table which displays below the paragraph.

Thus, when the others talk about creating an empty paragraph to contain the table, they mean create a paragraph without text (that is, a blank line) and create the table while the insertion point is in the empty paragraph (that is, at the beginning of the line).

Van

Arnis, I don't know how to "simply create paratags" that create a table. I see no way in the interface to do that.

I can create a table tag and apply that to Table > Insert Table (which is what I've done). Is that what you mean?

All it takes is piece of cloth to blind one completely.

stevenjs
________________________
"I am but an egg."
--Stranger in a Strange Land

Arnis, thank you. Yes, if I were doomed to continue originating documents in Word, your work flow suggestion (and R.VanDyke's) makes wonderful sense. But I'm converting to leave that horrible, abusive, out-of-control application behind altogether.

You said: "use a special paragraph tag to hold only an anchored frame or table (i.e. a container) and not to drop those items into existing paragraphs that contain text. This way you have more control in the placement of these frames & tables and how they behave at page breaks."

I am just getting a handle on getting FM tags to behave like Word styles, and simply have no idea how to go about getting a para tag to "hold a table." Can you step me through that?

looking forward to hearing from you,

stevenjs
________________________
"I am but an egg."
--Stranger in a Strange Land

Steven:

You may (or admittedly, may not) want to rethink your workflow from the top.

More specifically, you may prefer to start by worrying less about replicating where and how content appears in Word.

That may enable you to quit trying to replicate those specific behaviors in FrameMaker and instead focus on presenting the information in a way that reaps the advantages in stability and control FrameMaker provides.

As such, you wouldn't need to "redo" the Word documents, but rather capture the information from Word then use FrameMaker to format it in ways that are often superior to Word's...

Or so it seems...(?)

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

Art,

No cntrl B's. Don't know what you mean by "tag that is only used as an anchor point for tables (or anchored frames) and doesn't carry any text, it's much easier to add or delete text in the main text flow." Especiall the part "doesn't carry any text." What is the purpose of such a tag or table or frame if it has no text?

Are you saying a text frame cannot have a different border color from its background color? Only a table cell can?

I find it hard to believe one must virtually redo the entire document in FM. This is a nightmare.

stevenjs
____________________________
--Stranger in a Strange Land

If I were you, I'd not use text boxes at all; I'd use single cell tables because the ruling and shading is much easier to control.

Also, if you create a tag that is only used as an anchor point for tables (or anchored frames) and doesn't carry any text, it's much easier to add or delete text in the main text flow.

I assume that you know already that you should be controlling the text with paragraph tags and character tags, not attempting to do Ctrl-B and other overrides.

Art

Art, thanks. That is not working either. There are 'text boxes' in the Word doc that have a background color and stroke, as well as colored text within. Following the RTF Word > Import to FM > Save as MIF > Copy Paste from MIF to template or import formats from template to MIF procedure you suggest leaves me with horizontal lines of an unknown nature and peculiar spacing as well for all the text that had been inside the Word 'text boxes.'

I found that if I select a paragraph with the strange lines that had been inside the Word text box and applying an FM style the weird lines and spacing disappears and some of the colors come through, others do not. None of the bolding comes through.

I am also tasked with recreating the text boxes (there has to be a very close fidelity to the original Word doc) and more problems there. For instance (if not obvious, I am an FM newbie), if I draw a text box and use the 'pen' tool selection to apply a 1 pt. black stroke to the frame, I am unable to then apply a backgrond color to the text frame without losing the border stroke. Or in the reverse, if I apply a background color to the frame, I am unable to apply a different stroke/border color. This is not a conversion issue, but I cannot find a syllable on the subject in FM Help.

Also, if I click on the color icon in the tool palette, it shows a partial list and I am unable to scroll to select a color lower down in the list.

In any event, recreating colors, bolding, text frames with background color and different border/stroke color for each of dozens upon dozens of text frames is a mountain of work, and that is only one of many such docs in need of conversion to FM.

Any and all help or guidance here is much appreciated.

regards,

stevenjs
____________________________
"I am but an egg."
--Stranger in a Strange Land

Steven,
If you're copying and pasting, you're also pasting Word control characters in, which isn't a great thing to do and may be at the root of your problem.
A couple possible new workflows, and by extension, a way to clean things up:
Try saving as RTF in Word, and opening that file in FM so it runs through the FM import filter. From FM, SaveAs MIF, to clean up hidden characters. Open the MIF file and copy and paste from that into your FM parent file, or just import FM formats form your template file and go forward. (the SaveAs MIF would be the way to clean up your existing file(s) too.