Macros for formatting in FM 7.0 for Windows

[Lisa_...@adobeforums.com]

I have a situation whereby I need to format lots and lots of text in a similar way and would like to write a macro to do it. I soon discovered that there is no macro capability for Windows FM, but there are some add on products. I checked out Finite Matters Ltd. website, but I'm still not sure if their product allows me to write macros for formatting (Heading 1 and 2 to be precise). I did see that you can simply do a "Find and Replace" to change character formatting in FM, but I can't make the text a "heading" using that method and I need for this formatted text to populate in the TOC. Specifically, I need a macro to say something like the following:

Any text beginning with #.# - Heading 1
Any text beginning with #.#.# - Heading 2
...and so on
Any suggestions? Thanks. Lisa in Roswell

[Karen_...@adobeforums.com]

You can copy the Heading1 or Heading2 paragraph formats (right-click to Copy Special > Copy Paragraph Format), then in your Find/Change window, Change field, pull down to By Pasting. Paste the format into the field (nothing is visible). I would hesitate to do this globally as the search will find anything with a period. You might search for 1.1 and change all, then 1.2 and change all, etc. That will be safer and still save you some time. Hope this helps. -Karen

[Lisa_...@adobeforums.com]

This worked beautifully. Thanks! Lisa

[Russ Ward]

Hi Lisa,

I'm glad you solved your problem without having to do anything too complicated. For future reference, though, the FrameScript product by Finite Matters, FrameAC by Mekon (www.mekon.com), and the FrameMaker API (already built in) all provide highly flexible scripting capabilities. With any of those, you would have to learn how to use the tool, but the sort of automation you required would be child's play for these powerful customization environments.

Russ