Applying a new template to existing FM documents

[_Roberto_P_Torres_]

Hello everyone,
I'd appreciate some advice as to how to apply a new template to a set of documents in a book.
The source documents have been created with no specific template to be part of a book. The thing is that they are full of manual overrides and tons of useless para tags and formats. There is no coherence in the numbering and referencing definitions, just as if the person who did it was a Word user that thought of creating a document for a one-time-only print and never thought of the future use of all the information in it.
I have right now a template that roughly imitates the look of the existing documents and I'd like to put all the content in the new template. How can I do that in the most automated and fastest way?
I'm speaking of a service manual of 16 chapters with multi-level numbering and lots of cross-refs of technical content.
Thanks a lot in advance for any suggestions.

Roberto

[Art Campbell]

The best way to do this is to use the CleanImport plugin because that will purge the catalogs of existing settings and add your new template's settings instead. Using the Frame Import > Formats will just add the new settings on top of the old.

In either case, you'd open the book file, select all component files to which you want to apply the template and then either run the plugin or do File > Import > Formats. If you use the FM process, there are checkboxes to Remove overrides... which you should activate.

For follow up, you need to reconcile the old settings, which you can do by copying one of your new paragraph tag's formats (Copy Special), and then searching for the old paragraph's name and replacing it by pasting from the clipboard. At the book level, obviously.

Art

[_Roberto_P_Torres_]

Thank you so much Art.
I have gotten the plugin and I'll keep you posted on the results...

Cheers,

Roberto

[_Roberto_P_Torres_]

Wonderful, the plugin worked just fine. I had to do some manual adjustments after the import but as a whole, I saved a lot of time energy and avoided a great deal of frustration.
Thank you so much Art.

Roberto