A Simple Way to Rename Conditions in Framemaker

[Ben Hechter]

Just want to wish everyone on the list 'Happy New Year' and say thanks for all the time saving tips. I'm happily continuing to use Frame 7 and believe that Framemaker still cannot be touched for reliable single sourcing and long document processing.

My tip for the New Year: A Simple Way to Rename Conditions

For a training project, I found it helpful to rename a set of six conditions in order to keep the condition names self-documenting. This actually happened 3 or 4 times over the course of the project, while my understanding of the training roles improved.

Came up with the following simple method of renaming conditions:
1. Make a copy of the entire book for safekeeping.
2. Use the Robohelp MIF dll to automatically save all book files as MIF in a single directory.
(http://download.macromedia.com/pub/robohelp/files/downloads/htmlhelp/robomif.zip)
3. Open all MIF files simultaneously in EditPadLite (http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html). You may want to sort the tabs alphabetically (View> Sort Files Alphabetically).
4. In the EditPadLite Search and Replace panel, set the search and replace text.
5. Click the All Files checkbox to apply a single search and replace action to all open files, then click Replace All.
6. Repeat step 5 for each condition name to be changed.
7. In EditPadLite, save all the updated MIF files (File > Save All), then reopen in Framemaker.




Ben Hechter 
bhechter at objectives.ca
www.semitake.com