Udate Table Format does not work...

[jcosiersr]

I have 10 tables the we use on a regular basis, I recently changed the Table formats in table designer for each of the tables. Whe I would with existing documents I need to be able to update the tables to the corrent format as stored in Table designer for that table. Basiclly I have a heading row which is set with background color and borders. the who document has a medium border around it, then inside all the borders are thin. When I insert table everything coms out correct, but on thabes there have the same name, the updated formats are not being applied.

I use the global update options under commands. and nothing updates.  What am I doing wrong?

~Jim

[Guest]

Jim, I seem to remember that updating a table format does not change the formatting of existing tables. There are, however, allusions to various possibilities in the online Help; use "formatting multiple tables" as the search term. (cunningly retrieved from index to the FrameMaker 7.0 User Guide) I haven't tested them, but I'm glad your post prompted me to look them up. It's a task that can take more time than it should!

If they turn out not to do what you want, perhaps a rough and ready approach might be to change the table format definition, convert the not-updated tables to text and then convert them back into tables. A long way from elegant, so let's hope better ways are available.

[jcosiersr]

Niels

If this was a new project I would do the change, but I am tasked with over

1600 documents that have this format in them and it's not an easy task as

you know. The tables have been in existance since the beginning of the

company using frame. The big difference is now there is a heading row where

before the first row was given a different style.

[AxialInfo]

Niels is correct, that the way FM treats updates to table definitions is slightly different that updating paragraph tags.

End result is that an existing table can't have heading rows added to them by changing the assigned table format.

A common dilemma, unfortunately.

Your choices are probably

1) to add the heading rows manually, in FM.

2) to save each file as MIF, add heading rows programmatically in the MIF, then save the MIF files back to binary  .fm

3) get a utility such as Framescript and create or get a custom-made script to automagically add the heading rows. The bonus to this approach is that you could also populate data in the column heading row cells at the same time, if you wanted.

I'm absolutely 100% positive that Rick Quatro at FrameExpert has Framescripts available for sale that can do what you need -- check with him at http://www.frameexpert.com

Framescript info at http://www.framescript.com and also at the user group,

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/framescript-users/

[Guest]

Sheila, from what you didn't say I was inspired to take a look at something … it seems that a table anchor is not considered a marker. Is that so?

N

[AxialInfo]

A table anchor is not a marker, correct. Not sure if I can quite see any reason that they would be considered similar ... ?

[Guest]

Well, you know ... it marks something special! though I can see that as it doesn't have any content/attributes attached it wouldn't be exactly the same as other markers. The question was prompted by reading in the Helps about selecting multiple table anchors; I've since discovered "Find any table", but no obvious automated option for multi-select.

[jcosiersr]

Thanks, I'll continue the way I was working which is the way you recommended..... I hate taking over others work.

Thanks for all your help... I'm sure I'll be asking more questions later..

Jim