Can I create a global paragraph/character catalog?

[Guest]

Is there a way to create a global style catalog in FrameMaker so that, when I modify a character or paragraph style in one document I can save those changes back to the catalog so they are available for my other documents?

I know that I can create a new document using another document as a template, and I know that I can select a single document as my base document or "template" and manually add the style changes to its catalog, but this presents two problems:

1- I need to manually make the changes in my template document after I make them in my new document.
2- I need to manually import the update styles into existing documentation.

both of these actions require manual effort and inevitably lead to out of sync catalogs.

Does anybody know of a way to create a global catalog to which I can save style changes?

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Scott,

You can copy paragraph and character formats between documents and templates. A template is nothing more than a document without content, but with all the formats stored in it.

Depending upon your workflow, I suggest making your changes in your template file, then copying the formats from the template file into each of your document files. The command is File > Import > Formats. In the dialog box, you can select which kinds of formats to import.

You can of course make your change in the document file and import it into the template file, but if you have formats in the document file that you do NOT want in the template file, then you will have to delete them from the template file. That is why it is best to update the template file directly.

To my knowledge, there is no Frame feature that stores changes in a document file automatically to the template file. A document file does not know the template from which it was created; all the template information is stored in the document file itself.

Van

[Art Campbell]

In addition to Van's thoughts.... the CleanImport PlugIn works better than the regular import in many situations because it replaces the old formats with the new formats instead of just updating them.

Also, you can pretty easily update all affected chapters if you maintain a meta-book that contains all like chapters from all your real books. Then just import the template's formats to all chapters of the meta-book and all your component file chapters are updated in one pass.

Art

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Scott and Art,

Art suggests:

"Also, you can pretty easily update all affected chapters if you maintain a meta-book that contains all like chapters from all your real books. Then just import the template's formats to all chapters of the meta-book and all your component file chapters are updated in one pass."

I would clarify this by stating that the meta-book should contain ALL your real chapters from all your books, not all LIKE chapters from all your real books. Unless I am wrong, I do not think Art means to imply that if the meta-book contains a file that is LIKE several other files in your books and you update that file, then all the other files are updated also. You have to update the files directly. The meta-book is convenient because it contains ALL your files. You open the meta-book, select all the files, and import the updated formats from the file in which they were made. All files are updated, even though you may not be working on some of them at this moment.

Van

[Guest]

Thanks for the replies, but there seems to be a lot of manual effort involved in all of the suggestions above which is what I'm trying to avoid.

I know how to import formats as I stated in my original posting. My question is whether there is a way to more easily manage the process with a global catalog of some kind.

I am new in my current position and there are no standard document templates so I am creating them as I go. It being very difficult (nearly impossible) to anticipate every possible formatting choice, I am creating paragraph and character tags as I go. When I see these tags set against each other in new ways, I tweak them. there is currently no good way to send those tweaks back to a global template to make them present in my existing documents. It requires the manual efforts described in my original post and in subsequent replies. This leads very quickly to documents being out of sync with the new standard.

I would love to know if anyone else has ideas on this that do not require a lot of manual effort. I'd prefer to spend that effort on document creation rather than tag management.

Thanks!

[Art Campbell]

Van,
I was using "like" to mean similar in purpose. For instance, all Preface files, or all content Chapter files, or all front matter files. I use different layouts and different tags in each type of file, so I build meta-books of that type.

Scott,

We understand your request. But many people don't like that "feature," at least as it's implemented in Word (for example). I'd continue to pay money not to have it available.

Applying a template with updated formats to several hundred files is still only a few clicks. I understand that making those keystrokes can take a few minutes and the update itself can take some time, but it's decent thing to do at the end of the day so the computer can churn in the evening on its own.

Cheers,
Art

[Guest]

Scott:

One of the things that I've been able to do successfully is save a single FrameMaker chapter file as a MIF, edit that MIF in a text editor, and use that editor's Find-Replace to change certain aspects of paragraph styles.

For example, if the problem is to globally change several paragraph styles from "Font_A" to "Font_B", I use the Paragraph Designer to update one paragraph style with Font_B before saving the file as a MIF. This enables me to get the correct in-file syntax for the new font's name, then use Find-Replace to update all instances.

From there, I open the MIF in FrameMaker, save it as an .fm file, then import that .fm file's styles into any other chapter files that need updating.

This works for me because (a) I usually only update a template set once at the start of a project, and (b) getting one chapter file converted makes it trivial to convert any others that need the updates. After that I seldom need to do any wholesale changes that would benefit from a built-in templates modification tool...

Cheers & hope this helps,
Riley

[_Van_Kurtz_]

Art,

I understand now what you meant. I work in a different environment in which paragraph formats are used the same throughout all documents. In addition, we use structured Frame, which minimizes the number of formats to manage. Of course, we have to manage updates to the EDD and it has to be reimported to all files after updating, so I guess it is six of one and a half dozen of the other.

Van

[Guest]

"But many people don't like that 'feature,' at least as it's implemented in Word (for example). I'd continue to pay money not to have it available."

Couldn't that be handled with a simple application preference or just by the user not creating a global catalog? It doesn't seem to make sense to not implement a feature because not every single user wants to use it. I can see how this feature would be useful to enough people to justify its inclusion, as long as FM provides the ability to turn it off for those who don't want it (or implements it in such a way that unless you create the global catalog FM doesn't use one).

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll look into using the strategies mentioned above, but I'd still like to hear any additional strategies that other people use.

[_Dennis_Brunnenmeyer_]

One way to simplify what Scott is trying to do would be to create an Export Formats dialog to allow exporting individual tags, variables and other items, rather than a chunk or the whole lot at once. Even though that feature alone would still require manual intervention, at least when a new tag is created, it could easily be added back to the template.

The next step to streamlining this process then is to automate it at the user's option. Compare the current file catalogs, variables and so on to the template's corresponding items. When a "feature" is added to the document, an optional pop-up window would ask if you wanted this new item added to the template.