FM11 tables will not update shading (colors)

Report · Jun 02, 2015

Hello

I am using FM 11 on some pre-existing files I inherited.

These had some two-column tables (no header) with unique colors defined for left and right columns, to be used as a heading on a page.

The original author used CMYK color definitions throughout which ended up looking extremely bright in PDF.

I have since defined new colors with web-safe RGB values and updated the table definition to use these in the table designer.

Existing tables will not accept/display the changes in color when I "Update All". I can't even change to some other color and Apply. I can't even set the shading to None and have it turn off. Nothing happens to that table.

New tables that I insert using the same table format show the new color definitions and accept changes Applied to them if needed.

I do not believe I have any overrides on these tables except forcing a few to appear at the top of a page, or setting the row height to minimum value. Is there a way to force all the overrides to be exposed/removed? Update All is not affecting this "stuck" color problem.

If I delete the table and re-insert it from the Table Catalog then it works fine. I do not want to do that for a hundred tables across 20 files.

Thoughts?

don

Report · Jun 03, 2015

I have corrected my problem and naturally, it is NOT a bug, merely an effect from the Custom Ruling & Shading aspect of tables in Frame. My answer was in the User Manual: Home / Using FrameMaker 11 / Tables / Formatting tables

This statement caught my eye: "A table’s custom shading is not stored as part of the format. Wherever the regular and custom settings are in conflict, the custom settings prevail." Further in I found this.

To display a cell’s ruling and shading settings

Select the cells, rows, or columns that have the ruling and shading properties you want to see.
Choose Table > Custom Ruling & Shading, and click Show Current Settings

In my case all the tables had been manually overriden to "look" like the desired table, but were no longer bound by the rules of the Table Designer.

I basically had to go through every single table in all the files and

Make sure it was using the properly defined “ModuleTitle Table” definition, and
Make sure the custom ruling/shading was all set to “From Table” and Apply

Now they all behave themselves and even will react to minor changes I wish to make to their definition in Table Designer.

Report · Jun 03, 2015

inheritance as part of a learning process :-} and yes, it's infuriating when our predecessors leave us something it takes twice as long to correct as it would have done to get right in the first place … hats off to my own, who played according to the rules and took time to look things up himself