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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.<BR><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3> <BR></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>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. </FONT></FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2>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.</FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3> <BR><BR></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2>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?</FONT><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks.</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Doug Edwards</DIV>
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