Paragraph Formats Alternate Reality

[Combs, Richard]

Nancy Allison wrote: 
 
> I'm using FM 10 on a Windows 7 system.
> 
> I am trying to change the body text of a document from TimesNewRoman to Arial.
> 
> I have tried two methods:
> 
> 1. Selected another file with the correct formats and used Import. I have done
> this at least 10,000 times in the past 20 years. It does not work. Nothing
> changes.
> 
> 2. Saved the file to .mif, opened it in Notepad, replaced TimesNewRoman with
> Arial, reopened in FrameMaker. Have done this not as many times, but many.
> Nothing changes.

Check whether these paragraphs have overrides -- at the bottom left of the FM window, does the paragraph format name have an asterisk next to it? Does it indicate that a character format (indicated by "f:<format name>") is applied? It's possible somebody selected all the text and applied a character tag -- in that case, changing the paragraph format definitions won't "take" until the character tag is removed. It's also possible that they applied ad hoc formatting to all the text -- in that case, electing to remove overrides when importing formats will solve the problem. 

If it's not a character format or format overrides, try this (I'm assuming you're trying to change a variety of non-heading paragraphs): 

1) Select a range of text containing only paragraph formats you want to change, but as many of them as possible (create such a range if you want). 

2) Open Paragraph Designer. The Paragraph Tag field will be empty because multiple tags are selected. 

3) On the Default Font tab, change Family to Arial. 

4) Select Commands > Global Update Options. 

5) In the dialog box, select Default Font Properties Only and All Matching Tags in Selection, and then click Update. 

Repeat as needed to change additional paragraph formats. 

If that doesn't work, it may be time to contact Adobe support. :-} 

HTH!

Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
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rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-903-6372
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