How do you make global changes to master and reference pages....?

[tiger351w]

here is my scenario, I have several technical documents (books) that have between 40 and 90 chapters each.  I need to make some global replacements on the master and reference pages (logos, etc) .  How can I change the master pages throughout the book without having to change each chapter's master/reference page separately?

I was not the original creator of these books and I am fairly new to framemaker.  I have a good deal of experience in Indesign and Pagemaker.

The original documents were created in version 8.0 and I am using version 9.0

Thanks for the help -

Rob

Tiger351w@hotmail.com

[Art_Campbell1 · Accepted solution]

Either get one chapter just as you want it, or create a master template (recommended) file that is not in any book, but which has  all settings as they should be.

Open your "master file."

Open all the files in the book (Shift + File>Open All). In the book file, select all the component files to which you want to apply the changes. Do File > Import Formats >and specify your master file as the source.

If you only want to update master and ref pages, just select those options (Master pages = Page Layouts).

In most situations, you'd want to activate the checkboxes that remove overrides.

Art

[tiger351w]

ahh .... fantastic. Worked like a charm. Thank you so much

[peter minneapolis]

You might want to note that it's a good idea to have a backup set of files in case something goes wrong in operations like this, even if you only have a few files; with your large quantity of files, it's a REALLY good idea.

Also, after performing the format import operation on open files, although you're warned that there's no undo, because the files were open, the changes aren't saved, so you can use Shift+File > Close All Files in Book and click No in the Save? alert.

HTH

Regards,

Peter Gold

KnowHow ProServices

[tiger351w]

Thank you all for your help, you saved me untold hours of work.  I did create a complete backup set of my files before trying to apply the format. it was a good thing too, framemaker closed from an error and locked everything.  Rather than playing that game i just made copies of the back up again and used those.

Next question:  on two of my books I can open the book, edit all the individual files etc, but if I try to "save" the book or change the name of the book  framemaker crashes.  i am guessing I should just take the time to recreate the book from the start again. Any reason why it would do this?

[Art_Campbell1]

Your problem certainly sounds as if the book file is corrupted, or there's a file/network permission problem.

I'm not positive about cause-and-effect, but I've noticed some odd stuff happening whenever a book file rolls forward between revs, whether it was 7 > 8, 8 > 9, or even 7 > 9. The conversion doesn't seem as tight as the component file format upgrade. So I've just gotten into the habit of creating new book files in the new format.

Other things that can trigger a crash are network timeouts, if a component file has a missing font / graphic / something else....

But that's why I tend to open all component files before doing book-wide stuff.