Adobe Community: Share Formats and Variables Across A Book?

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1. Error7103,

Jan 24, 2012 7:56 AM in reply to JohnHuntington

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I'm sure this has been discussed before but search didn't turn up anything.

It has, but isn't quickly found.

I presume you are aware that you can designate one component file to be the reference container for all variables (and revisions thereof), and then update all other book components with a single book menu operation? This what we do.

Is there a way to share paragraph and character formats, variables, etc across a book?

You could define once, say, on a Ref Page of Cover.fm, and make all other uses cross-references to that (rather than vars). (Of course, then the master instances don't need to be vars at all.)

This does have the downside that all instances become hypertext links, either to nowhere, or to somewhere you probably don't want.

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2. JohnHuntington,

Jan 24, 2012 8:37 AM in reply to Error7103

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Error7103 wrote:

I presume you are aware that you can designate one component file to be the reference container for all variables (and revisions thereof), and then update all other book components with a single book menu operation? This what we do.

Hmm, no I wasn't aware of that. Can you explain further (or point me to the help file?). I searched the help file but didn't find anything.

Thanks for the speedy response!!!

John

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3. Error7103,

Jan 24, 2012 9:55 AM in reply to JohnHuntington

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Designate one component .fm file to be the master copy of the Variables.

Whenever changing Variables (in that file), leave it open.

In the Book menu, select all the OTHER component .fm files (they do not have to be open).

File > Import > Formats ....

Import from Document: [ Masterfile.fm ]

[ Deselect All ]

[*] Variable Definitions

[ Import ]

If the master.fm is the only one open, it's the default source.

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4. JohnHuntington,

Jan 24, 2012 11:11 AM in reply to Error7103

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Aha, thanks, I knew how to do this but I was hoping I could do this without having to re-import every time.

I wish Adobe would just add a "master document" format or something where you could make all changes and not have to manually re-import.

Thanks!

John

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5. Mike Wickham,

Jan 24, 2012 2:00 PM in reply to JohnHuntington

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You can post feature requests here:

https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

You might also want to check out the ImportFormatsSpecial plugin from

frameexpert.com. It doesn't eliminate the need for manually importing

formats, but improves the dialog for doing so:

http://www.frameexpert.com/plugins/importformatsspecial/index.htm

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6. Error7103,

Jan 25, 2012 6:25 AM in reply to JohnHuntington

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I wish Adobe would just add a "master document" format or something where you could make all changes and not have to manually re-import.

Ok, now imagine the case where you want Variable "FileVersion" to have the same name but different values in each component file .

Using variables does indeed not auto-update across a book, but sometimes you don't want it to. Cross-references do auto-update across a book.

Anyhow, with the standard scripting now available in FM10, I suspect your "one-button" wish may already be granted.

It may easily be possible to add a "propagate variables" operation to a script for the overall work flow.

hmmm. I could use a script that propagate variables, sets condition codes, applies master pages, updates the book, sets color view, selects PDF options and renders to PDF ...

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7. JohnHuntington,

Jan 25, 2012 9:16 PM in reply to Mike Wickham

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Thanks, those frameexpert plugins look interesting.

John

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8. JohnHuntington,

Jan 25, 2012 9:16 PM in reply to Error7103

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Thanks...

John

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Share Formats and Variables Across A Book?

Jan 24, 2012 7:40 AM

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