Applying new templates to existing documents

[edwardsdo]

My employer has implemented a new corporate-level style guide that impacts the look and feel of our customer-facing documentation. Source files for these documents are created/maintained using unstructured FrameMaker 8 running on Windows XP sp 3. 13 writers are updating the majority of our current documents (group A) by applying templates that use the existing paragraph/character/table format naming conventions and reflect the new style requirements. A small group of the documents to be updated (group B) uses the A4 page size and a set of paragraph/character/table formats that have completely different naming conventions than those used group A. Group B includes 50+ documents with a total of 650 source files and just over 10,000 pages. We're considering the options we have for converting the group B documents to the new style guide requirements.
  
One option is to convert the group B documents to the templates used for the group A documents, including paragraph/character/table naming conventions and the letter page size, so that we can move forward with a single, consistent set of templates for all FM documents. However, this option means that we must identify all paragraph/character/table names in the group B documents, rename them with corresponding names from the group A templates, and then apply the group A templates to each FM file. Definitely a labor-intensive process unless it can be automated significantly, possibly with FrameScript. 

The other option is to modify the templates currently used for the group B documents to obtain the needed look and feel, and then reapply those templates to the group B documents. The conversion effort would be reduced significantly, but we would still have two sets of FM templates to maintain. 

Is there a more efficient way to implement either of the options I have described? Are there other options for reformatting the group B documents? 

Thanks.

Doug Edwards


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers-frameusers.com/attachments/20110726/999e9950/attachment.htm>