Getting Rid of Unused Tags and Format Overrides in FrameMaker

[Dan Emory <danemory@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:01 AM 6/24/00 -0500, Kay Ethier wrote:
>Without a plug-in, you can clean up a paragraph or character catalog
>by:
>
>Deleting all the formats in the file's catalogs
>Saving as HTML
>Following the prompts to add to the catalog the formats in use in that
>file
>When finished, the catalogs will be stripped down to formats in use
===============================================
The original question was how to get rid of unused paragraph and
character tags in the catalogs. Kay Ethier suggests deleting all formats
from the catalogs, then saving as HTML.

Saving as HTML is unnecessary. Instead, after
deleting all formats from the catalogs, simply
choose File > Utilities > Create and Apply Formats.
This action will fill the para and char catalogs with the format tags
that are actually in use, and, in addition, will create new format tags
in cases where ad hoc format overrides were applied.

For example, if you have a para tag named Bullet, and in one
instance of Bullet you've applied an ad hoc format override,
format tags Bullet and Bullet1 will both appear in the
para catalog. The Bullet tag will be applied to all instances
of Bullet that do not have the override. The Bullet1 tag
defines the formatting of the instance having the format override,
and that tag is applied only to that instance.

Also, if you've applied ad hoc format overrides to text strings within
paragraphs instead of applying a character tag, the Create and
Apply Formats action will create, in the Character Catalog,
a new character format (e.g., CharFmt, CharFmt1, etc.) for each
unique instance of an ad hoc format override. Thus, if there are two
instances where you applied Format > Style > Bold to text strings,
and three instances where you applied Format > Style > Italics to text
strings, two new character formats, CharFmt and CharFmt1
are created. CharFmt will be applied to the two instances of
bolded strings, and CharFmt2 will be applied to the three
instances of italicized strings.

As I have described in greater detail in my paper "FrameMaker
Template Design and Enforcement," the method described
above is the most effective way to rid documents of
unused tags, as well as finding and removing abominable
ad hoc format overrides. Once authors know you are going
to do this to everything they produce, they'll realize they
can no longer get away with cheating, and (hopefully)
will mend their ways by adhering to the template.

The 24-page paper is available on request as a 277 KB
Acrobat 3.0 PDF file, delivered as an email attachment.

====================
| Nullius in Verba |
====================
Dan Emory, Dan Emory & Associates
FrameMaker/FrameMaker+SGML Document Design & Database Publishing
Voice/Fax: 949-722-8971 E-Mail: danemory@primenet.com
10044 Adams Ave. #208, Huntington Beach, CA 92646
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