Rick and Art, Thanks for your insights. Both sensible approaches and at least somewhat less painful than rebuilding the entire thing from scratch :-).
--Karen >==Rick's Reply== > >Hi Karen, > >Here is how I would approach the problem. Find the component the book that >is the most solid as far as styles. Make a copy of this and call it your >"template." Delete all of the paragraph format formats in this document that >still need work, leaving only the solid formats. > >For each of your other components, identify a one or more styles that you >know that are in good shape. Think in terms of categories; for example, >maybe you spent a lot of time getting your list styles in place in a >particular document. Make a temporary copy of this document and delete all >paragraph formats except the list styles. Now import these paragraph formats >into your template and discard the temporary document. > >You do not necessarily have to do this in one sitting; you can do it over >time as you work on your book. What you are doing is building up your >template by adding solid formats to it. Since the paragraph catalog only >contains your good formats, you can at any time import the paragraph formats >from this document into all of the other components in the book. Once your >template's paragraph catalog has the same number of formats as the book's >components, then it should be pretty complete. > >You can do this process with your template's other categories of styles, >like character and table formats. To round out the template, you could make >this into a style guide for your book. When you want to modify or add >formats in your book, do it in the style guide (template) first, and then >import the formats into your book's components. > >Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. Thank you very >much. > >Rick Quatro >Carmen Publishing Inc. >rick at frameexpert.com >585-659-8267 > >==Art's Reply== > >I think any method you choose depends on having one known-good file >that you can use as a template for the others. It may be a true >template or one of the chapters, but it should exist so you can clone >it to the others and enforce consistency. Depending on the version of >FM that you're running (you should provide that information, and your >OS, when you post). > >There are a couple of methods you can use to reconcile the tags and >other styles -- tables, colors and so on. I'd recommend the Clean >Import plugin because it removes all existing styles from all catalogs >and then pulls in the set from your template file. Simply importing >formats will add the "good" tags to the existing ones but not remove >what's there. > >At that point you need to apply your good tags to the content in the >files if there's a difference in tag names and remove any manual >over-rides. There are several other tools that can help with that, >although you can often just work with the Global commands in the >paragraph and character designer tools. > >Art > >Art Campbell >art.campbell at gmail.com > On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 7:56 PM, Karen Robbins<karendesign at gmail.com> wrote: > Hello Frame Gurus, > > I'm rather new to the list so please bear with me. > > I have a book containing 12 files. Over time (starting before I ever > worked with these files), each file's paragraph style sheet has been > modified so that now the book's styles are a sea of inconsistency. > Using Paragraph Tools I can reduce the mess to what's actually in use > and eliminate what I don't need. I still need to re-name/spec what > remains more consistently. > > To get one file's formats into another, I know I could import > paragraph formats to individual files. But I would have to re-create > all the formats in one document first (even though they already > exist, spread throughout several documents). Will this give the same > result as if a single merged style sheet had been applied to all > files in the book? Is there another (more > effective/efficient/reliable) way? > > Anticipating your wisdom.... > > Karen > _______________________
