Category Archives: Editing

A couple of weeks ago, we were discussing lists of corrections that editors can make automatically using Microsoft Word’s Find and Replace feature. For more information, you may want to read these two issues of Editorium Update: http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708048908 http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708127357 I’d like to thank Martha H. Bowes, Ned Humphrey, and Joel Rosenberg for sending more items […]

As I explained in last week’s newsletter, editors who work in Microsoft Word can make many changes automatically (using Find and Replace) rather than making them manually. For more information on how to do that, please read last week’s newsletter: http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1708048908 This week, I’ve provided a long list of corrections that you *might* be able […]

When working electronically, editors often have to decide whether to make certain corrections manually or automatically, using such features as Find and Replace. Some corrections *have* to be made manually, but, in my opinion, editors often make more manual corrections than they should. For example, many editors change restrictive “which” to “that” by hand, making […]

No, no, not that kind of passes. I’m talking about making separate passes through a document to catch different kinds of errors. If you can catch them all in one pass, your mind is much more efficient than mine. I work much better and catch more errors by going through a manuscript several times, fixing […]

When I’m editing on the computer (which is most of the time), I’m most effective when I edit from the “top down.” What that means is that I don’t start changing commas and semicolons until I’ve done some other, more comprehensive tasks: 1. If each chapter of a book is a separate document, I pull […]

When you first install Microsoft Word, it’s set up for the “generic” user–someone who employs only the most basic features of this powerful program. For example, it displays the Standard and Formatting toolbars but not the AutoText or Reviewing toolbars. But if you’re editing or typesetting in Word, you’re not a generic user–far from it. […]

While editing in Microsoft Word, I often need to find something that’s *partially* formatted and replace it with something else. For example, let’s say a manuscript has a bunch of superscript note numbers preceded by a space that’s *not* in superscript. Here’s an example (with carets indicating superscript): Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. ^1^ I’d […]

I hope you’ve enjoyed the wildcard “tutorial” articles in Editorium Update over the past few weeks. If you haven’t read them, I’d recommend that you do so in order to understand this week’s article. You can review the whole series here, starting with the March 20, 2001, issue: http://www.editorium.com/euindex.htm/ This week I thought you might […]

For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about using wildcards to find and replace text in Microsoft Word. Last week I introduced the “Find What Expression” wildcard (n) and promised to show you how to use it to move things around. Let’s say you’ve got a list of authors, like this: Emily Dickinson Ezra […]

For the past few weeks we’ve been talking about using wildcards to find and replace text in Microsoft Word. This week we’ll discuss wildcard grouping, which is simply a way of telling Word that you want certain wildcards to be used together as a unit. Continuing with our example from last week, let’s say that […]