Character Tag "As Is" setting--isn't

Tue Nov 26 12:02:44 PST 2013

Hey Matt,

I think some of the confusion on this topic stems from a misunderstanding about what "As-Is" means. It doesn't mean "as the paragraph is defined" but instead means "at the current setting as it sits in the file.” That current setting can be different that the setting for the current paragraph tag. It may be the current setting because you had a previous character tag define the size. In that case applying a character tag with an "As-Is" size setting will result in no change in the (incorrect) size of the text.

I agree with you about the dangers of updating within a text flow, but it's not impossible to do that reliably. The scenario described below uses FM11, but I'm pretty sure FM10 (and below) allow the same thing and it also allows more-or-less global changing of a wrong text size within a file (see below for the caveat).

If you call up the Character Designer from within a text flow by using Ctrl-D and then select your named Character Tag from the drop down list the interface shows only those elements the Char Tag is set to change (for example: Bold and everything else As-Is.)

Selecting another characteristic and hitting Update All then applies only that new selection and the Bold. To all occurrences of the tag. You can check this by again doing a Ctrl-D and selecting the same Character Tag from the drop down list.

I've had to do this a lot lately in converting a series of Word files to a FM template. For some reason Bold and Italic text in the Word doc comes over as 12 pt text within a 10.5 pt Body Text paragraph format even though the char formats don't touch the text size. Redefining the Bold and Italic char formats to include setting the text to 10.5, Updating All and then immediately setting them back to "As-Is" (so they again only affect the bolding or italicizing) and again Updating All gets me the result I need without having to find each occurrence of the char tag, manually resetting the text to Default Font and then applying the clean char tag. But here's the caveat: If you have paragraph formats that have different point sizes your "reset" to the chosen point size will affect those as well. Those will have to be hunted down and changed via the manual method of Default Font and clean tag application. Luckily in the case of my Word docs that is a rare occurrence.

One thing we should all be learning from this is that you should never apply a character tag that sets the font size unless it really needs to do that. In those cases I put the point size in the Char Tag name so that it is clear what it is doing. Oh yeah, and don't overlay char tags. Only the final one will be shown as a named tag, but the effects of previous tags will affect the text in ways that might baffle who think the text ought not to have the previously applied characteristics. Instead use a tag that names all the elements you want to change (like Bold-Italic) and use that instead.

Thanks.

Craig
Subject: Re: Character Tag "As Is" setting--isn't
From: matt at mattrsullivan.com
Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 22:48:01 -0800
To: David.Davis at invensys.com
CC: framers at lists.frameusers.com

Hi David, 
I agree with your thoughts on the subject, but I believe the engineers would call this "as designed"…
I know it could be better, but given that the Character Designer hasn't changed since, well, ever.
As such, I'm betting it's not at the top of the To-Do list for the engineers.

-Matt
Matt R. Sullivan co-author Publishing Fundamentals: Unstructured FrameMaker 11 P: 714.798.7596 | C: 714.585.2335 | matt at mattrsullivan.com @mattrsullivan LinkedIn facebook mattrsullivan.com 

On Nov 20, 2013, at 12:53 AM, "Davis, David" <David.Davis at invensys.com> wrote:Cheers Matt,Yes I totally agree with your ‘bottom line’ –But surely this is a bug? The Character Designer dialog box (or “pod” as they seem to want to call it now) just simply isn’t behaving consistently and doing what it says it does.There is nothing I can see about this issue in the user docshttp://help.adobe.com/en_US/framemaker/using/WSB9594AD8-4282-4fbe-AE5A-3A3A4C9CC813.html David  From: Matt Sullivan [mailto:matt at mattrsullivan.com] 
Sent: 20 November 2013 03:58

Bottom line: Never update a character tag with your cursor in the text flow. Unless you like screwed up tags.

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