Convert Text to Table - Default Paragraph Format

[Renee_writer123]

Greetings fellow FrameMaker users!

I find that if I convert text to a table, I lose the original paragraph format and it becomes cellbody by default. Is there a way to change this default? I hope to make many tables by converting them from text, but I don't want to have to go through and change all the cellbody tags to the specific tag I want for that table format. I could maybe do one group of tables at a time, but still, I would have expected FrameMaker to let me specify the format of the cell text before or during the conversion.

Are we really stuck with this default?

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Thank you.

[FieryPantone · Accepted solution]

How about investigating table formats? I think that when I do things like pasting a block of tabbed text for conversion I apply a table format for consistency.

My battered hard copy of the 7.0 User Guide refers to

… the following paragraph formats, which are stored as part of a table format: the paragraph formats of the first title paragraph, and the first paragraph in the heading, body, and footing rows of each column.

[Renee_writer123]

Thank you, Niels. I did not realize FrameMaker was doing this when I was creating my table formats. Perfect!

[Xynoplas]

It would be VERY helpful if the normal user could look at table formats and see/control which paragraph formats were default in various cells.

[Bob_Niland]

> It would be VERY helpful if the normal user could look at table formats

> and see/control which paragraph formats were default in various cells.

When I need to have better control of this, I set up a Reference Page named "Table Formats", and create on it a two column text frame, containing one each of every table format in the document, fully populated with title, header, footer, and at least 2 body rows and 2 columns. One table should have a TableFootnote.

Making changes to these template tables, and doing an [ Update All ] in Table Designer doesn't seem to affect the paragraph formats in existing tables in the document, but does cause newly created tables to inherit the revised formats. There may be some Global Update Options I haven't discovered yet.

[FieryPantone]

I do remember hearing/reading somewhere that updating a table format doesn't modify existing tables, but can't remember where and so can't check any caveats I may have forgotten. The description in the 7.0 User Guide – under "Redefining (updating) table formats – is pretty opaque:

The properties applied to the catalog format include those set in the Table Designer and the defaults not set in the Table Designer - for example, the default paragraph formats (see "About tables" on page 133). In addition, properties set in the Table Designer (but not default properties that aren't changed in the Table Designer) are applied to existing tables in the document that have the same tag.