AW: Applying new templates to existing documents

[Reng, Dr. Winfried]

Hi Doug,

I used TemplateMapper from CudSpan to map old formats to new formats:
http://www.cudspan.net/plugins/executioner.php?do=displayPage&field_tab_num=2

CudSpan notes on his web-site that this plug-in is now distributed by iG5:
http://ig5authoringtools.com/plugin-directory/single-sourcing/templatemapper/

All depends on how strict authors had applied the formats.

Best regards

Winfried

Von: framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com [mailto:framers-bounces at lists.frameusers.com] Im Auftrag von edwardsdo
Gesendet: Dienstag, 26. Juli 2011 15:30
An: framers at lists.frameusers.com
Betreff: Applying new templates to existing documents

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

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