Cleaning Character Formats

[Fred Ridder]

You don't indicate what version of FrameMaker you are using, so I'll try to keep my answers as generic and universal as possible.

If you're trying to find named character styles, you should be choosing "Character Tag" rather than "Character Format" in the Find box. You will have to type the name of the tag, though, the same way you have to when searching for paragraph tags.

If you're trying to find instances of manually applied character formatting (format overrides), you'll either have to search for "Character Format" and deal with each item in the format dialog individually, or else get yourself a script or plug-in that finds overrides and generates a hyperlinked report. Once you have the report you can jump to each override and either remove the formatting or apply it via named styles (tags). For years I've used the hunt overrides plug-ins from CudSpan (Chris Despopoulis) and they work just fine.

BTW, if you're searching for tags or formatting, you should not be checking the "Consider Case" option, since that is intended for use when searching for a text string in the document's content. I don't know whether it affects tag or formatting searches or whether it is completely ignored (as it should be), but why select it if it's irrelevant?

-Fred Ridder

Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 12:15:10 -0700
Subject: Cleaning Character Formats
From: karendesign at gmail.com
To: framers at lists.frameusers.com

I want to remove rogue character formats and replace them with correct ones. I've used Character Tools to generate a list of formats by file so I know which ones are in each document of my book. I choose "Character Format..." in the Find/Change palette, type the character format name in the entry field, check the "Consider Case" checkbox, check the "Document" radio button to check only the open document, and click "Find." 


Usually, the "Find Character Format" dialog appears. I can't possibly remember all the properties I assigned to every format I created, and certainly wouldn't know the properties of a rogue or legacy style that I didn't create. I just want to find the format by the name assigned to it. Shouldn't those names appear in the scrollable entry field of the Find/Change palette, the same way paragraph styles do? (Not even default character styles show up.) Must I generate a long CT report on all styles to get the properties to complete this dialog?


If I close this dialog and try again, a "Specify the character format to find" alert appears. 

My documents have only an A flow. I doubt the character format I'm looking for would be on a master page. Even if a style or two were in an unanchored box, for example, that doesn't explain all styles not being available or found.


I'm sure this is a case of user error. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Karen


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