Converting to Character Formats

[Rick Quatro]

Here is the private reply the I sent to Marcus regarding a FrameScript 
script to do this:

I have a FrameScript script that finds local formatting and applies a
character format. You can run it on an entire folder of FrameMaker
documents. It derives a character format name based on the local formatting.
When the script finds local formatting, it checks to see how its properties
differ from the base paragraph format's properties. The properties are
checked in the same order as they are shown in the Character Designer, from
top-to-bottom, left-to-right. For your reference, the order is

Family, Size, Angle, Weight, Variation, Color, Language, Underline,
Overline, Strikethrough, Change Bar, Position, Capitalization.

Spread, Stretch, and Pair Kern are not supported, but could be added.

Here is an example of how this works. Assume you are processing Heading1
paragraphs. There is a local override in the paragraph where the Font Size
is 20 points and the Angle is Italic. The script would tag the text with
"20Italic".

The script comes with an INI file with a [Mapping] section so you can map
the local formatting to a particular Character Format. For example, if you
want all 20 point Italic overrides to be tagged with "Emphasis," you would
put this in the [Mapping] section:

20Italic=Emphasis

Keep in mind that the text will take on the formatting of the format on the
right side of the equal sign. So, in the above example, the resulting text
will be formatting with the Emphasis character format and its defined
properties, even if they are different from what was originally found by the
script.

For each document that is processed, the names of the character tags will be
written to the Console window. What you can do is make a copy of your folder
and run the script. Then look at the Console window and use the list of
character tags to determine the best mapping to use in your INI. After
editing the INI, you can rerun the script on the real folder.

If you are interested, the cost for the script is $120. Thank you very much.

Rick Quatro
Carmen Publishing
585-659-8267
www.frameexpert.com

> Marcus,
>
> We get hard coded stuff coming over from Word all the time. The most 
> efficient way we've found to find and tag all of it with the appropriate 
> character tag is to use the file/utilities/create and apply formats. This 
> will create a format for any untagged and hard coded formatting, ie 
> charfmt1, charfmt2, charfmt3, etc...  You then just isolate what 
> characteristic each new tag represents, then rename the tag to the 
> appropriate character format in your template, then reimport your 
> template, then delete the charfmt tags from your catalog.  This also works 
> well for paragraph formats.
>
> If someone has a quicker way to do this, I'd love to learn :)
>
>
> -bob
>
> Robert Kern
> President, TIPS Technical Publishing, Inc.
> 108 E. Main Street, Suite 4
> Carrboro, NC  27510
> www.technicalpublishing.com
> bob at technicalpublishing.com
> 919-933-2629 phone and fax