Sometimes the paragraph styles of a given template don't meet your needs and you would like to change them. Remember that in FrameMaker, a paragraph can be a body of text in the conventional sense of the word paragraph, or it can be a title, an item in a numbered or bulleted list, or a row of data in a table.
Changes to the characteristics of a paragraph are made in the Paragraph Format window. From this window, you can change the current paragraph or all paragraphs that have the same tag (for example, 1heading). You can also change the tag definition in the Paragraph catalog, so that the next time you select this tag from the Paragraph catalog, you will use the new characteristics. It is also possible to create new paragraph tags.
Let's say you want to change the characteristics of the first level heading (called Heading1) in the Report template. To do this:
The Paragraph Format window will appear; the Paragraph Tag box at the top left should read 1heading. Underneath this is the Properties box, which should read Basic. If you click and hold the word Basic, the Properties pop-up menu appears, and you will see that the properties of a paragraph are divided into categories: Basic, Default Font, Numbering, Tabs, Advanced, and Table Cell.
To change the size and style for the first level heading:
Once you have made changes in a given category (in this example, Default Font), you must "apply" them. Look at the Apply To area on the lower left side of the window. For now, you might just want to see how the changes look on one heading, so select only "Current Paragraphs" and click Apply To.
If you like the appearance of the new heading, you can apply the changes to all of the 1heading paragraphs and in the Paragraph catalog, so that all future first level headings will look like this. To do this, first click on Paragraphs tagged:, then on the Paragraph catalog, and then on Apply To.
In a similar fashion, you can use the Character Format window to change the characteristics of the tags in the Character (C) catalog. Working with the Paragraph and Character Format windows gives you a great deal of control over the look of your document.
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