TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: remove spaces from Word From:sphilip <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com (techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com)" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 22 Mar 2013 11:09:48 +0700
I'm sure others will benefit from another excellent tip that Stuart shared off-list.
Thanks again, Stuart!
On 22 Mar 2013, at 10:46, Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> wrote:
> No worries, Phil.
>
> One more really handy tip: In the Replace with box you can specify ^c to replace the found string with the clipboard contents. So you can copy almost anything to the clipboard, such as multiline formatted text or a skeleton table, and use Find/Replace insert it in the document wherever a certain other string is found.
>
> Cheers,
> Stuart
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "sphilip" <philstokes03 -at- googlemail -dot- com>
> To: "Stuart Burnfield" <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au>
> Sent: Friday, 22 March, 2013 11:07:30 AM GMT +08:00 Beijing / Chongqing / Hong Kong / Urumqi
> Subject: Re: remove spaces from Word
>
> Thanks Stuart, that's really helpful stuff!
>
>
> On 22 Mar 2013, at 08:01, Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> wrote:
>
> Phil, just to round out Fred's great reply, you can find a complete list of the operators and tokens by clicking the Help button from the Find/Replace dialog. In Word 2010 the topic is titled 'Find and replace text and other data in your Word 2010 files'. Look for the tables under these subheadings:
> Search by using wildcards to find specific letters
> Use codes to find letters, formatting, fields, or special characters
> You should be able to find the equivalent of virtually all the operators you're used to in sed.
>
> Gene Kim-Eng said:
> > I do this more selectively, such as replace period plus two spaces
> > with period plus one space. And click through the document one change
> > at a time. The one-click replace all operation is more often than not
> > the path to more work than it saves.
>
> I prefer to be cautious too, but you can often do a first pass to handle to easy cases before reverting to Find Next - check - Replace. For example, to fix two spaces at the end of a sentence:
>
> Find what: . ([A-Z])
> Replace with: . \1
>
> In other words:
> - find a full stop followed by two spaces followed by any capital letter
> - replace it with a full stop followed by one space followed by the same capital letter
>
> Another common case is where there are two spaces between words in the middle of the sentence:
>
> Find what: ([a-z]) ([a-z])
> Replace with: \1 \2
>
> In other words:
> - find a lowercase letter followed by two spaces followed by another lowercase letter
> - replace it with the first letter in the found string followed by one space followed by the second letter in the found string
>
> Once you've dealt with these cases there may be only a handful of other double-space instances left. Easy to check and fix one at a time.
>
> Stuart
>
> Best
>
> Phil
>http://applehelpwriter.com
>
>
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
EPUB Webinar: Join STC Vice President Nicky Bleiel as she discusses tips for creating EPUB, the file format used for e-readers, tablets, smartphones, and more.
