Location of Format definitions

[SteveHeflin]

Where are the formatting names used in Structured EDD actually defined?  For example, where is  HeadingLeadIn  defined, which is used in Structured\xml\UserGuide\app_xml\UserGuide.EDD.fm

[Arnis Gubins]

Look in the Catalogs of the corresponding UserGuide.template.fm file...

[SteveHeflin]

I see the format tag name listed, but I don't see where the definition of the tag appears, and more important, how to change it!

Thanks very much for your help!

[Arnis Gubins]

At this point, this is a regular FrameMaker template and you need to use the Paragraph Designer to change the catalog definition. Likewise for the Character and Table formats. Use the respective Designers to change the existing definitions that you see listed in the catalogs.

[SteveHeflin]

I see now, however what concerns me is the format definitions location in the template file.  With structured applications, one of many benifits is that all existing documents built from the application can have the format uniformly modified by changing the format rules in the EDD.  If the format rules are changed in the template, how is the change going to be reflected in existing documents?

[Arnis Gubins · Accepted solution]

You're staring into the face of the separation of content vs. format debate now...

Some would consider the ability to define all of the formating in the templates to be a key benefit, as you can swiftly swap out templates without having to change your structured application.

In any existing documents, you would have to manually apply the revised templates (File > Import > Formats) to make changes to those documents.

[SteveHeflin]

Hey that sounds very workable actually.  So by opening a document created from a previous version of the template, and then (File > Import > Formats) from the current version of the template file, the document format will be updated.

[Arnis Gubins]

Correct. That's the beauty & simplicity of FM templates. You can change appearances for different purposes and then simply re-import the format changes into a book or individual files to see the changes instantly.