I've been working on a really big set of really big books that use odd, archaic spellings. Wanting to modernize those spellings, I decided to create a macro that would list every word that Microsoft Word sees as misspelled. You'll find the macro a little farther down, but before using it, you'll need to tell the macro where the misspellings are to be recorded. There are three options:
OPTION 1
List the errors at the end of your document.
OPTION 2
List the errors in a new document.
OPTION 3
List the errors in the document in the next window, such as a new, blank document you've already created.
You'll specify the number of your option in the following line in the macro:
myOption = 1
If you use option 3, you can use my MultiMacro program to run the macro on a whole folder full of documents, which will give you a nice, long list of misspellings at the end of your MultiMacro list (assuming your documents have misspellings). More information here:
http://www.editorium.com/14844.htm
Once you've got that list, you can use it to *automatically* fix the misspellings. How? Stay tuned; I'll reveal the secret (and give you another macro) next week.
And now, here's the macro:
'THE MACRO STARTS HERE
Sub ListSpellingErrors()
Dim myDoc As Document
Dim myErrorCount As Integer
Dim e As Integer
Dim myOption As Integer
'*****************
'CHOOSE ONE OF THE FOLLOWING
'THREE OPTIONS:
'OPTION 1
'List the errors at the end of
'your document.
'OPTION 2
'List the errors in a new
'document.
'OPTION 3
'List the errors in the document
'in the next window, such as a new,
'blank document you've already created,
'or a MultiMacro list.
'Specify the number of your option
'in the following line:
myOption = 1
'*****************
'Macro specifies the current document:
Set myDoc = ActiveDocument
'Macro tells Word the document hasn't
'already been spell-checked
'(whether it has or not):
myDoc.SpellingChecked = False
'But if you want Word to remember
'spell-checking you've already done,
'put an apostrophe in front
'of the command above, which turns
'off the command.
'Macro counts the number of errors
'in the document:
myErrorCount = myDoc.SpellingErrors.Count
If myOption = 1 Then
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
ElseIf myOption = 2 Then
Documents.Add
ElseIf myOption = 3 Then
If Windows.Count >= 2 Then
WordBasic.NextWindow
Else
MsgBox "Only one document open."
GoTo EndMacro
End If
End If
'Now type the misspellings into
'the specified location:
For e = 1 To myErrorCount
Selection.TypeText Text:=myDoc.SpellingErrors(e)
Selection.TypeParagraph
Next e
If myOption = 3 Then
WordBasic.NextWindow
End If
EndMacro:
End Sub
'THE MACRO ENDS HERE
If you don't know how to use such macros, you'll find instructions here:
http://lists.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706922855
_________________________________________
READERS WRITE
Eric Fletcher wrote:
In your February 24 Editorium Update, you quoted Alan Shepard's note about images being messed up, and then a tip about printing without images. I am a big promoter of using only linked rather than embedded images. This not only keeps a Word document smaller but also leaves the source image unchanged. Moreover, if you have all linked images saved in a specific folder relative to the documents, you have the means to manage some otherwise complicated print issues.
For example, if I need to produce a publication for both screen viewing (or low-res print) and a high quality photosetter (offset press, for example), I prepare the images in the best quality for the latter and save them in a folder below where the Word documents are being saved (I use "art/highres"). I then copy the images "up" one level, and prepare the Word document with links to the named images within the "art" folder. This lets me print in the best quality possible for the photosetter, but can really bog down a lower resolution printer--and makes screen refresh irritating and unnecessarily slow.
So here's the trick: To prepare the lower-res version, I then use a batch function of an image editor to make copies of all of the high-res images in a more suitable resolution and save them to a different folder (I use "art/lowres") without changing their names. I then copy everything from this folder up into the "art" folder, replacing the high res versions. The links within the Word documents now point to lower-res versions of the same named images (i.e., a field like { INCLUDEPICTURE "art/c03f12migration.tif" d } will point to whatever image is named "c03f12migration.tif" in the "art" folder, so Word will use that image when the page is recalculated for display or printing).
Using the same approach, I could have the batch routine in my image editor alter the images to retain the dimensions but remove all content (turn lightness to 100% for example) and resave to a third folder ("art/nores" maybe?). Copying these images up to replace the ones in my target "art" folder would then result in a document linking to "empty" images--and since the sizes would be the same, any text flow would not be affected. (This would mimic the placeholder behaviour Word provides through the Options View dialog.)
Word can do a lot, but it was never designed to be an image processor.
Many thanks to Eric!
_________________________________________
RESOURCES
The fabulous (in my opinion) Wikipedia uses some excellent "misspelling" lists to maintain consistency. You, too, can use these lists, if you want to. They're available here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_common_misspellings
The lists could be used (with a little tweaking) with my MegaReplacer program:
http://www.editorium.com/14843.htm
