Colour confusion in cross-reference format -- help!?

[jaggedpeak]

(FrameMaker version 8.0p277)

We recently applied revised templates to our documents and I am not having problems with my cross-reference formats.

When setting an xref to a heading/table/figure on another page, I want it to say (for example) "Figure 2-3 on page 17", where "Figure 2-1" is blue, and "on page 17" is the default text colour (for these docs, that would be black).

When I insert an xref and choose a display format as described above, the text appears properly (blue, then black).

However, when I update the book, many of the xrefs (but not all) change to all blue text. (For example, Figure 2-1, 2-2, 2-5 are okay, but 2-3 and 2-4 appear all in blue.)

Here is the xref format definition for figures:

<bluetext>Figure\ <$paranumonly><Default ¶ Font> on page\ <$pagenum>

where <bluetext> is a character format (all 'as-is', except Color is set to Blue).

So far, I am the only one who has had this problem (three other writers using Frame 8 as well), but I'm the only one working on this particular set of documents.

Anybody have any hints as to how to resolve this? I have found limited success with copying/pasting the encompassing content (for example, if xrefing to a heading in a cell of a given table row, copy and paste the entire row, then delete the original row fixes the problem. *Sometimes*. Same for table xref (replace entire table), figure xref (replace figure and caption and some surrounding body text), heading (replace heading plus some surrounding body text).

I'm at a loss.

Thanks

[jaggedpeak]

Thanks to the 'more like this' column, I found the following article: http://forums.adobe.com/message/1236943#1236943, which identifies a similar problem (*very* similar), but I'm not sure how to use the answers to resolve my particular format problem.

The differences I see are:

- That issue described mutliple character formats appearing 'together' before the text they modify, whereas mine has only one format before each of the text portions (bluetext for the first part, default font for the second).

- That issue seems to have been *consistent* (the impression I got was that it happened to all of their xrefs). In mine, only some of the xrefs become unicolour.

So... I could still use some help 🙂

Thanks again.

[jaggedpeak]

And... I think I have it (sorry to have dragged you all along for the ride 🙂

With the Character Designer displayed, moved cursor through text. Found that the Character Tag field changed to <Blue> after the last character of the offending x-refs. <Blue> was an old tag used in the previous template. It does *not* appear in the character font catalog (and does not appear in the drop-down character tag list either).

Solution (it seems):Select the text section and apply the DefaultFont format (everything goes black). Then update the book. Most of the xrefs display correctly. Some, however, remain all black. Double-click the xref and then click Replace, and it now has the proper format.

Will go through doc and do updates -- if more problems arise, will let you know!

(As an aside... if somebody can explain what is actually happening in a clear way, that would be great 🙂

Thanks again.