Lyonizing Word: From Easy to Impossible — Three Variations on a Theme

by Jack Lyon

Rich Adin just keeps on escalating the difficulty of his requests. That’s okay, because I appreciate a good challenge. Here’s his latest:

Okay, Jack, you solved the problem of reducing the number of authors from more than three down to three.

To see what Rich is talking about, please see my previous posts here: Lyonizing Word: We Can Do This the Easy Way, or . . . and Lyonizing Word: The Easy Way, Not So Easy.

Rich continues:

But there is a caveat: the list of names needs to end with “et al:”. So let me pose three more variations.

Three?! Oh, all right. Here we go:

Variation 1

How do I handle instances where the ending is punctuation other than “et al:”? For example, it could be a different punctuation mark than the colon or it could end with an author name and not “et al” (e.g., “Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W:” or “Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W, Hoffnagle TTP.”)

How do we handle instances where the ending is punctuation other than “et al:”? Here are Rich’s examples, all laid out for our inspection:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, Jackson TT, Doe J, Smith K, Winger W, Hoffnagle TTP.

As usual, the key is to find the “handle,” the unique elements we can grab to carry out our search. (For more on this, please see my article “What’s Your Handle?” [2003] at the Editorium Update.)

In Rich’s examples, the “handles” would have to be the colon that ends the first entry and the period that ends the second. Let’s try modifying the wildcard string from the previous post for Lyonizing Word:

([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, )[!^013]@([:.])

Here’s what that means:

Find any characters except a carriage return: [!^013]
repeated any number of times: @
followed by a comma
followed by a space
repeated three times
and enclosed in parentheses to form a “group.”
Then find any character except a carriage return: [!^013]
repeated any number of times: @
followed by [:.] (specifying a colon or a period) in parentheses to form a group.

And we can use the following in the “Replace With” box:

12

Here’s what that means:

Replace everything that was found
with the text represented by group 1: 1
followed by the text represented by group 2: 2

But does that actually work? Well, sort of, Here’s what we get:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, :
Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO, .

Maybe that’s close enough, as it would now be an easy matter to search for comma space colon and replace it with a colon, and to search for comma space period and replace it with a period. But if we want to refine our search string even further, we could use this:

([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@), [!^013]@([:.])

Here, we’ve placed the comma and space following the third name outside the parenthetical group, so they’re not included when the group is replaced by /1. That actually solves the problem, if you want to get precise, giving us a result like this:

Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO:
Lyon J, Adin R, Carter TO.

Variation 2

Rich wrote:

How can I revise the string to work even if there is no consistency in punctuation of names? For example, suppose the names are: “Lyon, J, Adin R, Carter T.O., Jackson TT, Doe, J.; Smith K; Winger, W; Hoffnagle TTP.”

As given, this can’t be done. Why? Because we’ve lost the uniqueness of the comma “handles” that separate the names. For example, instead of this —

Lyon J,

— we have this:

Lyon, J,

And instead of this —

Smith K,

— we have this:

Smith K;

So again, as given, we can’t fulfill Rich’s request. But can we change the “as given”? Why, yes, we can!

We can search for a lowercase letter followed by a comma (at the end of a last name) and replace it with just the lowercase letter (and no comma):

Find what: ([a-z]),
Replace with: 1

We can search for a semicolon (which sometimes follows initials) and replace it with a comma:

Find what: ;
Replace with: ,

Then we can use the same wildcard string we used earlier to fulfill Rich’s request:

Find what: ([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@), [!^013]@([:.])
Replace with: 12

You may be wondering if these wildcard strings will affect the article titles and journal names and not just the author names. The answer is, it depends. I’m assuming, for example, that the article titles and journal names don’t include commas (just for purposes of illustration). But if they do, you may have to get creative. Let’s take this as an example:

Levy, D, Ehret G, Rice K, Verwoert G, Launer L, Dehghan A, Glazer N, Morrison A, Johnson A, Aspelund T, Ganesh S, Chasman D: Genome-wide association study of blood pressure, stress, and hypertension. Nature 2009, 41(6): 677-687.

See that comma after “Levy”? Above, we got rid of it with the following strings:

Find what: ([a-z]),
Replace with: 1

But notice that this will also remove the commas after “pressure” and “stress” in the article title, which we don’t want to do. The solution, again, comes down to handles. What do we have that sets off the article title and journal name? In this example, they’re preceded by the colon after the author names (“Chasman D:”) and followed by a carriage return (at the end of the citation). So here’s a rather sneaky solution: Search for a colon followed by anything that isn’t a carriage return until you come to a carriage return. Then replace whatever was found with itself (^&) formatted as Hidden:

Find what: :[!^013]@^013
Replace with (use Hidden formatting): ^&

If you don’t know how to replace using formatting, here’s the secret:

1. Put your cursor in the “Replace with” box.
2. Click the “More” button if it’s showing.
3. Click the “Format” button on the bottom left.
4. Click “Font.”
5. Put a check in box labeled “Hidden.”
6. Click the “OK” button.

Notice that you can replace with all kinds of formatting: styles, paragraph alignment, and so on. You can also use formatting in the “Find what” box! This is really powerful stuff, and if you didn’t know about it before, now you can add it to your bag of tricks.

At any rate, with the article titles and journal names formatted as Hidden, you can make sure they actually are hidden by clicking the “Show/Hide” button (with the pilcrow icon: ¶) on Word’s “Home” tab. Then run your find and replace to remove commas from last names:

Find what: ([a-z]),
Replace with: 1

Finally, unhide the article titles and journal names (after using “Show/Hide” to display them):

Find what: (Hidden formatting)
Replace with: (Not Hidden formatting)

At that point, the commas will be gone from the authors’ last names but preserved in the article titles and journal names.

By the way, if you’re working on a Macintosh, you’ll find that Word doesn’t recognize the standard code for a carriage return (^013) while searching with wildcards. But never fear: you can still do what you need by “escaping” the code with a backslash and treating it as a range using square brackets. In other words, use this:

[ˆ013]

To specify not a carriage return, use the following:

[!ˆ013]

Variation 3

Rich wrote:

How can I adapt the wildcard string to delete those in excess of a certain number? For example, I have one client who wants up to ten author names listed and “et al” used only for names eleven and following. I would like to specify how many names I want retained and replace the excess with “et al.” For example, if there are fifteen names, delete the last five if ten are okay and replace them with “et al.”

Theoretically, we could do that as long as there’s a “handle” that marks the end of the names. Let’s take this example:

Levy D, Ehret G, Rice K, Verwoert G, Launer L, Dehghan A, Glazer N, Morrison A, Johnson A, Aspelund T, Ganesh S, Chasman D: Genome-wide association study of blood pressure and hypertension. Nature 2009, 41(6): 677-687.

There are actually twelve names there, so we want to keep the first ten and replace the last two with “et al.” What’s our handle? The colon after the last name (“Chasman D:”) and before the article’s title. So let’s try an expansion of the wildcard search string we used in the previous post for Lyonizing Word. Instead of grouping three comma-separated names, we’ll group ten:

Find what: ([!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@, [!^013]@,)[!^013]@(:)
Replace with: 1 et al.2

That would work if Word could handle it. But if you try it, Word will complain: “The Find What text contains a Pattern Match expression which is too complex.” So now what? Honestly, I’m not sure. I tried several other possibilities, none of which were successful. So if you, Gentle Reader, have any ideas about how to accomplish this seemingly impossible feat, I’d love to hear them.

Wildcard searching can’t do everything, but it can do an awful lot. As I’ve said before, after all these years of editing, wildcard searching is the tool I rely on the most. I encourage you to invest the time needed to learn to use this tool, which will repay your efforts many times over. A good place to start is my free paper “Advanced Find and Replace in Microsoft Word.”

I hope you’ll also watch for my forthcoming Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word. I’m still trying to find more real-life examples for the book, so if you have some particularly sticky problems that might be solved using a wildcard search, I hope you’ll send them my way. Maybe I can save you some work and at the same time figure out solutions that will help others in the future. Thanks for your help!

Jack Lyon (editor@editorium.com) owns and operates the Editorium, which provides macros and information to help editors and publishers do mundane tasks quickly and efficiently. He is the author of Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals and of Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word. Both books will help you learn more about macros and how to use them.

For other Lyonizing Word essays at An American Editor, Lyonizing Word at AAE.

The Business of Editing: Wildcarding for Dollars

Freelancers often lack mastery of tools that are available to us. This is especially true of wildcarding. This lack of mastery results in our either not using the tools at all or using them to less than their full potential. These are tools that could save us time, increase accuracy, and, most importantly, make us money. Although we have discussed wildcard macros before (see, e.g., The Only Thing We Have to Fear: Wildcard Macros, The Business of Editing: Wildcard Macros and Money, and Macro Power: Wildcard Find & Replace; also see the various Lyonizing Word articles), after recent conversations with colleagues, I think it is time to revisit wildcarding.

Although wildcards can be used for many things, the best examples of their power, I think, are references. And that is what we will use here. But remember this: I am showing you one example out of a universe of examples. Just because you do not face the particular problem used here to illustrate wildcarding does not mean wildcarding is not usable by you. If you edit, you can use wildcarding.

Identifying the What Needs to Be Wildcarded

We begin by identifying what needs a wildcard solution. The image below shows the first 3 references in a received references file. This was a short references file (relatively speaking; I commonly receive references files with 500 to 1,000 references), only 104 entries, but all done in this fashion.

references as received

The problems are marked (in this essay, numbers in parens correspond to numbers in the images): (1) refers to the author names and the inclusion of punctuation; (2) shows the nonitalic journal name followed by punctuation; and (3) shows the use of and in the author names. The following image shows what my client wants the references to look like.

references after wildcarding

Compare the numbered items in the two images: (1) the excess punctuation is gone; (2) the journal title is italicized and punctuation free; and (3) the and is gone.

It is true that I could have fixed each reference manually, one-by-one, and taken a lot of time to do so. Even if I were being paid by the hour (which I'm not; I prefer per-page or project fees), would I want to make these corrections manually? I wouldn't. Not only is it tedious, mind-numbing work, but it doesn't meet my definition of what constitutes editing. Yes, it is part of the editing job, but I like to think that removing punctuation doesn't reflect my skills as a wordsmith and isn't the skill for which I was hired.

I will admit that in the past, in the normal course, if the reference list were only 20 items long, I would have done the job manually. But that was before EditTools and its Wildcard macro, which enables me to write the wildcard string once and then save it so I can reuse it without rewriting it in the future. In other words, I can invest time and effort now and get a reoccurring return on that investment for years to come. A no-brainer investment in the business world.

The Wildcard Find

CAUTION: Wildcard macros are very powerful. Consequently, it is recommended that you have a backup copy of your document that reflects the state of the document before running wildcard macros as a just-in-case option. If using wildcard macros on a portion of a document that can be temporarily moved to its own document, it is recommended that you move the material. Whenever using any macro, use caution.

Clicking Wildcard in EditTools brings up the dialog shown below, which gives you options. If you manually create Find and Replace strings, you can save them to a wildcard dataset (1) for future recall and reuse. If you already have strings that might work, you can retrieve them (2) from an existing wildcard dataset. And if you have taken the next step with Wildcards in EditTools and created a script, you can retrieve the script (3) and run it. (A script is simply a master macro that includes more than 1 string. Instead of retrieving and running each string individually, you retrieve a script that contains multiple strings and run the script. The script will go through each string it contains automatically in the order you have entered the strings.)

Wildcard Interface

As an example, if I click Retrieve from WFR dataset (#2 above), the dialog shown below opens. In this instance, I have already created several strings (1) and I can choose which string I want to run from the dropdown. Although you can't see it, this particular dataset has 40 strings from which I can choose. After choosing the string I want to run, it appears in the Criteria screens (2 and 3), divided into the Find portion of the string and the Replace portion. I can then either Select (4) the strings to be placed in primary dialog box (see Wildcard Interface above) or I can Edit (5) the strings if they need a bit of tweaking.

Wildcard Dataset Dialog

If I click Select (4 above), the strings appear in the primary Wildcard dialog as shown below (1 and 2). Because it can be hard to visualize what the strings really look like when each part is separated, you can see the strings as they will appear to Microsoft Word (3). In addition, you know which string you chose because it is identified above the criteria fields (purple arrow). Now you have choices to make. You can choose to run a Test to be sure the criteria work as expected (4), or if you know the criteria work, as would be true here, you can choose to Find and Replace one at a time or Replace All (5).

The Effect of Clicking Select

I know that many readers are saying to themselves, "All well and good but I don't know how to write the strings, so the capability of saving and retrieving the strings isn't of much use to me." Even if you have never written a wildcard string before, you can do so quickly and easily with EditTools.

Creating Our String

Let's begin with the first reference shown in the References as Received image above. We need to tackle this item by item. Here is what the author names look like as received:

Kondo, M., Wagers, A. J., Manz, M. G., Prohaska, S. S., Scherer, D. C., Beilhack, G. F. et al.:

What we have for the first name in the list is

[MIXED case multiletter surname][comma][space][single UPPERCASE letter][period][comma]

which makes up a unit. That is, a unit is the group of items that need to be addressed as a single entity. In this example, each complete author name will constitute a unit.

This first unit has 6 parts to it (1 part = 1 bracketed item) and we have identified what each part is (e.g., [MIXED case multiletter surname]). To find that first part we go to the Wildcard dialog, shown below, click the * (1) next to the blank field in line 1. Clicking the * brings up the Select Wildcard menu (2) from which we choose we choose Character Menu (3). In the Character Menu we choose Mixed Case (4) because that is the first part of the unit that we need to find.

Wildcard First Steps

When we choose Mixed Case (4 above), the Quantity dialog below appears. Here you tell the macro whether there is a limit to the number of characters that fit the description for this part. Because we are dealing with names, just leave the default of no limit. However, if we knew we only wanted names that were, for example, 5 letters or fewer in length, we would decheck No Limit and change the number in the Maximum field to 5.

How many letters?

Clicking OK in the Quantity results in entry of the first portion of our string in the Wildcard dialog (1, below). This tells the macro to find any grouping of letters — ABCd, Abcde, bCdaefTg, Ab, etc. — of any length, from 1 letter to 100 or more letters. Thus we have the criteria for the first part of our Find unit even though we did not know how to write wildcardese. In the dialog, you can see how the portion of the string really looks to Microsoft Word (2) and how, if you were to manually write this part using Microsoft Word's Find & Replace, it would need to be written.

How this part looks in wildcardese

The next step is to address the next part, which can be either [comma] alone or [comma][space]. What we need to be careful about is that we remember that we will need the [space] in the Replace string. If we do [comma][space] and if we do not have just a [space] entry, we will need to provide it. For this example, I will combine them.

Because these are simple things, I enter the [comma][space] directly in the dialog as shown below. With my cursor in the second blank field (1), I simply type a comma and hit the spacebar. You can verify this by looking below in the Find line of wildcardese (2), where you can see (, ):

Manually adding the next part

The remaining parts to do are [single UPPERCASE letter][period][comma]. They would be done using the same techniques as the prior parts. Again, we would have to decide whether the [period] and [comma] need to go on separate lines or together on a single line. Why? Because we want to eliminate the [period] but keep the [comma]. If they are done together as we did [comma][space], we will manually enter the [comma] in the Replace.

For the [single UPPERCASE letter], we would follow the steps in Wildcard First Steps above except that instead of Mixed Case, we would select UPPER CASE, as shown here:

Selecting UPPER CASE from the Characters Menu

This brings up the Quantity dialog where we decheck No Limit and, because we know it is a single letter we want found, use the default Minimum 1 and Maximum 1, as shown here:

A Quantity of 1

Clicking OK takes us to the main Wildcard dialog where the criteria to find the [single UPPERCASE letter] has been entered (1, below). Looking at the image below, you can see it in the string (2). For convenience, the image also shows that I manually entered the [period][comma] on line 4 (3 and 4).

The rest of the Find criteria

The Wildcard Replace

The next step is to create the Replace part of the string. Once again, we need to analyze our Find criteria.

We have divided the Find criteria into these 4 parts, which together make up the Find portion of the string:

[MIXED case multiletter surname]
[comma][space]
[single UPPERCASE letter]
[period][comma]

The numbers represent the numbers of the fields that are found in the primary dialog shown above (The Rest of the Find Criteria). What we need to do is determine which fields we want to replace and in what order. In this example, what we want to do is remove unneeded punctuation, so the Replace order is the same as the Find order. We want to end up with this:

[MIXED case multiletter surname]
[space]
[single UPPERCASE letter]
[comma]

The way we do so is by filling in the Replace fields. The [space] and the [comma] we can enter manually. You can either enter every item manually or you can let the macro give you a hand. Next to each field in the Replace column is an *. Clicking on the * brings up the Select Wildcard dialog:

Select Wildcard

Because what we need is available in the Find Criteria, we click on Find Criteria. However, the Select Wildcard dialog also gives us options to insert other items that aren't so easy to write in wildcardese, such as a symbol. When we click Find Criteria, the Use Find Criteria dialog, shown below, appears. It lists everything that is found in the Find criteria by line.

Use Find Criteria dialog

Double-clicking the first entry (yellow highlighted) places it in the first line of the Replace, but by a shortcut — 1 — as shown in the image below (1). If we wanted to reverse the order (i.e., instead of ending up with Kondo M, we want to end up with M Kondo,), we would select the line 3 entry in the Use Find Criteria Dialog above, and double-click it. Then 3 would appear in the first line of Replace instead of 1.

The completed wildcard macro

For convenience, I have filled the Replace criteria (1-4) as The Completed Wildcard Macro image above shows. The [space] (2) and the [comma] (4) I entered manually using the keyboard. The completed Replace portion of the string can be seen at (5).

The next decision to be made is how to run the string — TEST (6) or manual Find/Replace (7) or auto Replace All (8). If you have not previously tried the string or have any doubts, use the TEST (6). It lets you test and undo; just follow the instructions that appear. Otherwise, I recommend doing a manual Find and Replace (7) at least one time so you can be certain the string works as you intend. If it does work as intended, click Replace All (8).

You will be asked whether you want to save your criteria; you can preempt being asked by clicking Add to WFR dataset (9). You can either save to an existing dataset or create a new dataset. And if you look at the Wildcard Dataset dialog above (near the beginning of this essay), you will see that you can not only name the string you are saving, but you can provide both a short and a detailed description to act as reminders the next time you are looking for a string to accomplish a task.

Spend a Little Time Now, Save Lots of Time Later

Running the string we created using Replace All on the file we started with, will result in every instance of text that meets the Find criteria being replaced. I grant that the time you spend to create the string and test it will take longer than the second and subsequent times you retrieve the string and run it, but that is the idea: spend a little time now to save lots of time later.

I can tell you from the project I am working on now that wildcarding has saved me more than 30 hours of toiling so far. I have already had several chapters with 400 or more references that were similar to the example above (and a couple that were even worse). Wildcarding let me clean up author names, as here, and let me change cites from 1988;52(11):343-45 to 52:343, 1988 in minutes.

As you can see from this exercise, wildcarding need not be difficult. Whether you are an experienced wildcarder or new to wildcarding, you can harness the power of wildcarding using EditTools' WildCard Find & Replace. Let EditTools' WildCard Find & Replace macro system help you. Combine wildcarding with EditTools' Journals macro and references become quicker and easier.

Richard Adin, An American Editor

Related An American Editor essays are:

_________________________

Looking for a Deal?

You can buy EditTools in a package with PerfectIt and Editor's Toolkit at a special savings of $78 off the price if bought individually. To purchase the package at the special deal price, click Editor's Toolkit Ultimate.

Lyonizing Word: Formatting with Macros

Formatting with Macros

by Jack Lyon

Most users of Microsoft Word format text by selecting a paragraph and then applying a font. More advanced users apply a style. Here’s why:

Styles are easier to use than direct formatting. Once you have the style set up (with, say, 12-point Arial bold, condensed by 1 point, left justified, with 24 points of leading above and 12 points of leading below), you can apply that style with a single click. But if you apply the same formatting without using a style, you’ll have to make a dozen clicks for each heading. If your document has 50 headings, that’s hundreds of clicks—versus 50 clicks if you use a style.
If you need to change the formatting of, say, level-2 headings, you can simply modify the style rather than tediously selecting each heading and applying a different font. Modify the style, and the formatting of all those headings is automatically changed.

But there is a way to handle formatting that is even more powerful—by using macros.

Suppose that you’ve dutifully applied styles to the various parts of a document, but then your client asks you to change the font—everywhere in the document—from Times New Roman to Adobe Garamond. (No, you should not just select the whole document and apply Adobe Garamond. Why? Because that simply “paints over” the real formatting that is still there in the styles, and it will almost certainly lead to inconsistent formatting somewhere down the line.) You could manually modify each style, but if there are dozens of styles in use, there is a better way. That way is a macro, like this one:

Sub SetFontInAllStyles()
Dim aStyle As Style
For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Style
aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"
Next
End Sub

Well, that was easy. Let’s look at each line of the macro (excluding the first and last lines, which simply define the beginning and end of the macro).

Dim aStyle As Style

This line defines (dimensions) a variable, aStyle (which name I just made up), as a style. At one point as the macro runs, aStyle might represent the style Heading 1. At another point it might represent Heading 3. But it will always represent a style.

For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

Here's where things start to get interesting. That line tells the macro to cycle through each style (represented by aStyle) in all of the styles in the active document (the document in which your cursor is currently sitting).

aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

And that line tells Word to set the font for the style currently being represented by aStyle to be Adobe Garamond.

The “Next” line tells Word to go to the next style in the document.

When you run the macro, it will cycle through each style in the document (For Each…) and set Adobe Garamond as the font used in that style.

But what if you want to change the font only in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on)? Try this:

Dim aStyle As Style
For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles
If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"
Next
End Sub

Here's the line of interest:

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

That line uses a macro command we haven't seen before, InStr, which checks for specific text in a larger string of text. In this case, it checks to see if the text “Heading” appears in the name of the style (for example, “Heading 4”). If it does, then the macro sets the font for the Heading style as Adobe Garamond.

Armed with that little beauty, you can pull off all kinds of formatting marvels. Here are just a few of the options available:

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Bold = True

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphCenter

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.NoSpaceBetweenParagraphsOfSameStyle = True

You can even specify the exact name of the style (rather than using InStr):

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Normal" Then aStyle.ParagraphFormat.Alignment = wdAlignParagraphJustify

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Heading 3" Then aStyle.Font.Italic = True

All of Word’s formatting options are at your disposal.

So yes, if you’re formatting a Word document, you should always use styles. But if you need to modify styles en masse, now you know how.

________

How to Add Macro to Word & to the QAT

Here’s how to put this macro (or any other) into Microsoft Word so it will be available when you need it:

Copy the text of the macro, starting with the first “Sub” and ending with the last “Sub.”
Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
Click the “Macros” button.
Type a name for the macro in the “Macro name” box — probably the name used after the first “Sub.” For this macro, that’s “______________.”
Click the “Create” button.
Delete the “Sub [macro name]” and “End Sub” lines that Word created in the macro window. The macro window should now be completely empty (unless you already have other macros in there).
Paste the macro text at the current insertion point.
Click “File,” then “Close and Return to Microsoft Word.”

To actually use the macro:

Place your cursor ___________________.
Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
Click the “Macros” button.
Click the name of your macro to select it.
Click the “Run” button. (If you wanted to delete the macro, you could press the “Delete” button instead.)

Here’s how to put the macro on Word’s QAT (Quick Access Toolbar):

Locate the QAT (it’s probably on the top left of your screen either above or below Word’s Ribbon interface).
Right-click the QAT.
Click “Customize Quick Access Toolbar.”
Under “Choose commands from:” click the dropdown list and select “Macros.”
Find and select your macro in the list on the left.
Click the “Add” button to add it to the QAT.
Click the “OK” button to finish.

Lyonizing Word: Formatting with Macros

Formatting with Macros

by Jack Lyon

Most users of Microsoft Word format text by selecting a paragraph and then applying a font. More advanced users apply a style. Why? Because then if they need to change the formatting of, say, level-2 headings, they can simply modify the style rather than tediously selecting each heading and applying a different font. (If you’re reading this, you’re probably one of those advanced users.) But there is a way to handle formatting that is even more powerful.

Suppose that you’ve dutifully applied styles to the various parts of a document, but then your client asks you to change the font—everywhere in the document—from Times New Roman to Adobe Garamond. You could manually modify each style, but if there are dozens of styles in use, there is a better way. That way is a macro, like this one:

Sub SetFontInAllStyles()
Dim aStyle As Style
For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

Next
End Sub

Well, that was easy. Let's look at each line of the macro (excluding the first and last lines, which simply define the beginning and end of the macro).

Dim aStyle As Style

That line dimensions (defines) a variable, aStyle, as a style. (As with all variables, I just made up the name “aStyle.”) At one point as the macro runs, aStyle might represent the style Heading 1. At another point it might represent Heading 3. But it will always represent a style.

For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

Here's where things get interesting. That line tells the macro to cycle through each style (represented by aStyle) in all of the styles in the active document (the document in which your cursor is currently sitting).

aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

That line tells Word to set the font for the style currently being represented by aStyle to be Adobe Garamond.

That line tells Word to go to the next style in the document.

When you run the macro, it will cycle through each style in the document (For Each…Next) and set Adobe Garamond as the font used in that style.

But what if you want to change the font only in heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, and so on)? Try this:

Dim aStyle As Style
For Each aStyle In ActiveDocument.Styles

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

Next
End Sub

Here's the line of interest:

If InStr(aStyle.NameLocal, "Heading") Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

The line uses a macro command we haven't seen before, InStr, which checks to see if a specific string of text is used somewhere. In this case, it checks to see if the text “Heading” appears in the name (NameLocal) of the style currently represented by aStyle. If it does, then the name of the font used in that style is set to Adobe Garamond.

You could even specify the exact name of the style to be changed:

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Block Quote" Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Adobe Garamond"

And that should give you an idea of how to modify a bunch of styles, all at once (between “For Each” and “Next”), to use various fonts:

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Poem" Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Arial"

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Author" Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Apple Boy"

If aStyle.NameLocal = "Subtitle" Then aStyle.Font.Name = "Constantia"

Much more can be done to automate the formatting of text using macros. I hope this brief article will get you started.

How to Add Macro to Word & to the QAT

Here’s how to put this macro (or any other) into Microsoft Word so it will be available when you need it:

Copy the text of the macro, starting with the first “Sub” and ending with the last “Sub.”
Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
Click the “Macros” button.
Type a name for the macro in the “Macro name” box — probably the name used after the first “Sub.” For this macro, that’s “CleanCellEndSpaces.”
Click the “Create” button.
Delete the “Sub [macro name]” and “End Sub” lines that Word created in the macro window. The macro window should now be completely empty (unless you already have other macros in there).
Paste the macro text at the current insertion point.
Click “File,” then “Close and Return to Microsoft Word.”

To actually use the macro:

Place your cursor at the beginning of the document.
Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
Click the “Macros” button.
Click the name of your macro to select it.
Click the “Run” button. (If you wanted to delete the macro, you could press the “Delete” button instead.)

Here’s how to put the macro on Word’s QAT (Quick Access Toolbar):

Locate the QAT (it’s probably on the top left of your screen either above or below Word’s Ribbon interface).
Right-click the QAT.
Click “Customize Quick Access Toolbar.”
Under “Choose commands from:” click the dropdown list and select “Macros.”
Find and select your macro in the list on the left.
Click the “Add” button to add it to the QAT.
Click the “OK” button to finish.

Lyonizing Word: Removing Spaces at the End of Table Cells

Removing Spaces at the End of Table Cells

by Jack Lyon

Authors do funny things. Sometimes these things are inadvertent; sometimes they’re the result of trying to “prettify” documents for publication. In either case, editors have to clean up what the authors have done.

One such problem is spaces at the ends of table cells. A table cell should end with the text it contains. If there are spaces after that text, they can cause alignment (and other) problems if they’re allowed to persist into typesetting.

It should be a simple matter to clean up the extraneous spaces: Search for a space followed by an end-of-cell marker and replace with just an end-of-cell marker. But what magic code can we use to find or replace an end-of-cell marker? As it turns out, there isn’t one. But we can still get rid of those spaces with a macro. Here it is, with comments about what’s going on (text following a single quotation mark is a “comment”, which is also in green for clarity):

The Macro

Sub CleanCellEndSpaces()

'Define variables (that is, containers for information)
Dim aTable As Table
Dim aCell As Cell
Dim aRow As Row
Dim aColumn As Column
Dim aRange As Range 'That is, a specific area of the document
Dim aLen As Integer 'That is, a number
Dim LastChar As String 'That is, a string of characters (text)

Dim Tracking As Boolean 'True or False
Tracking = ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions 'Get setting of revision tracking
ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = False 'Turn off revision tracking

On Error Resume Next 'In case of tables with "vertically merged" cells
'Cycle through tables, rows, and cells

For Each aTable In ActiveDocument.Tables
For Each aRow In aTable.Rows
For Each aCell In aRow.Cells

CheckAgain:

Set aRange = aCell.Range 'Set aRange variable to the contents of the current cell
aRange.End = aRange.End - 1 'Don't include the end-of-cell marker
aLen = Len(aRange.Text) 'Get the length of the cell's text
aString = aRange.Text 'Assign the text to a variable
LastChar = Right(aString, 1) 'Get the last character of the text
If LastChar = " " Then 'If the last character is a space

aRange.Text = Left(aRange.Text, aLen - 1) 'Set the text to be itself minus the trailing space
GoTo CheckAgain 'Go back and check for another space (there may be several)

End If
Next aCell
Next aRow
Next aTable

ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = Tracking 'Set revision tracking back to its original state

End Sub

The Explanation

Here’s how the macro works.

We start by “dimensioning” (defining) our variables, like this:

Dim aTable As Table

“aTable” is an arbitrary name; I just made it up. But that whole line tells Word that aTable will represent a table in our document. The other “Dim” statements follow suit, with “aCell” representing a table cell, “aRow” representing a table row, and so on.

These three lines deserve special attention:

Dim Tracking As Boolean
Tracking = ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions
ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = False

Dimensioning the “Tracking” variable as Boolean tells Word that the variable will be either true or false; those are the only two values it can hold.

Next, we set “Tracking” to the value of ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions. If revision tracking is on, “Tracking” will be set to “True.” If revision tracking is off, “Tracking” will be set to “False.” We do that to remember the current setting for revision tracking, because the next line, “ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = False” actually turns revision tracking off (we’ll reset it later). This is necessary because (1) tracking the deletion of those extraneous spaces isn’t needed, and (2) using revision tracking may send this macro into an endless loop as it keeps “finding” the character that it just deleted (but is still there as a tracked revision).

The next line —

On Error Resume Next

— needs to be there in case a table includes “merged” cells, which will cause an error when the macro runs. If that happens, the macro will skip to the next line, which means that tables with “merged” cells will be ignored. There may be a better way to deal with such tables, but I don’t know what it is.

After that line, things get really interesting:

For Each aTable In ActiveDocument.Tables

This tells Word to work on “Each” table in ActiveDocument.Tables. “What’s that?” you ask. Well, obviously “ActiveDocument” is the active document — the document that’s open in Word with our cursor moving around in it. (Other documents may be open but not active.) In the active document, there’s a collection of objects called “Tables” — which are, of course, the tables in the document.

And now, a brief digression: As far as macros are concerned, a Microsoft Word document is “simply” a collection of various objects, such as tables, headers, footers, footnotes, endnotes, paragraphs, words, and much, much more. All of these objects have certain “properties.” For example, a paragraph may have the property of FirstLineIndent set to “True” — in other words, its first line is indented. Objects can also contain other objects. For example, a table always contains at least one row and one column. So, in our macro, we have this:

For Each aRow In aTable.Rows

That tells Word to work on each row in the current table. Similarly, this —

For Each aCell In aRow.Cells

— tells Word to work on each cell in the current row.

Next, we’re going to set the range of text we want to use (that is, aRange) to be the current cell:

Set aRange = aCell.Range

Then we’ll reduce the end of that range by one character, so we don’t include the end-of-cell marker:

aRange.End = aRange.End - 1

And, using the Len command, we’ll find out the length (number of characters) included in the range’s text:

aLen = Len(aRange.Text)

Now let’s get that text by putting it into the variable called “aString”:

aString = aRange.Text

And we’ll use the Right command to find out the last character of the text string (that is, the first character on the right of the string):

LastChar = Right(aString, 1)

That looks a little complicated, but it’s actually fairly simple. Let’s say our text string is “Hi, Mom!” The “1” tells the Right command at which character to start counting (from the right of the string). In other words, LastChar is assigned the last character of the string, which in this case is an exclamation mark (“Hi, Mom!”).

But what if the last character is a space? That’s what we really we want to know. The next line will tell us if that’s the case:

If LastChar = " " Then

If the last character is a space, we need to get rid of it, which we can do like this:

aRange.Text = Left(aRange.Text, aLen - 1)

That line changes the text of our range to itself minus its last character (if the previous line identified its last character as a space). But what if there’s more than one space? We want to get rid of those spaces too! And that’s where the next line comes in:

GoTo CheckAgain

That sends the macro back to the “label” we’ve created at this line:

CheckAgain:

And the operation is repeated on the cell until no more spaces remain at the end of the cell.

All of the “Next” commands that follow repeat the whole operation for every cell in every row in every table of the active document. Powerful stuff!

Finally, the macro restores revision tracking to its original setting as stored in the “Tracking” variable:

ActiveDocument.TrackRevisions = Tracking

As they taught us in kindergarten, it’s good to clean up after yourself.

This article is a brief introduction to manipulating Word “objects” with macros. Future articles may explore more of those objects, along with their “properties” and “methods.” If that’s more than you want to know, you may still find the macros themselves to be useful.

How to Add Macro to Word & to the QAT

Here’s how to put this macro (or any other) into Microsoft Word so it will be available when you need it:

Copy the text of the macro, starting with the first “Sub” and ending with the last “Sub.”
Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
Click the “Macros” button.
Type a name for the macro in the “Macro name” box — probably the name used after the first “Sub.” For this macro, that’s “CleanCellEndSpaces.”
Click the “Create” button.
Delete the “Sub [macro name]” and “End Sub” lines that Word created in the macro window. The macro window should now be completely empty (unless you already have other macros in there).
Paste the macro text at the current insertion point.
Click “File,” then “Close and Return to Microsoft Word.”

To actually use the macro:

Place your cursor at the beginning of the document.
Click the “View” tab on Microsoft Word’s ribbon.
Click the “Macros” button.
Click the name of your macro to select it.
Click the “Run” button. (If you wanted to delete the macro, you could press the “Delete” button instead.)

Here’s how to put the macro on Word’s QAT (Quick Access Toolbar):

Locate the QAT (it’s probably on the top left of your screen either above or below Word’s Ribbon interface).
Right-click the QAT.
Click “Customize Quick Access Toolbar.”
Under “Choose commands from:” click the dropdown list and select “Macros.”
Find and select your macro in the list on the left.
Click the “Add” button to add it to the QAT.
Click the “OK” button to finish.

Lyonizing Word: Deleting Extraneous Carriage Returns in Footnotes and Endnotes

Deleting Extraneous Carriage Returns
in Footnotes and Endnotes

by Jack Lyon

During my editing career, I've often run into problems with footnotes and endnotes in Microsoft Word. Many authors have no clue about how notes are meant to work, and Microsoft certainly hasn't made it obvious. In fact, they've made it easy to mess notes up beyond repair.

One mistake authors make is to insert extraneous carriage returns before or after a note. Why? Because they don't like the positioning of the note on the page, which they're trying to make "pretty," not understanding the problems that will cause in editing and typesetting.

You can try to remove the extraneous returns like this:

1. Click View > Draft.
2. Click References > Show Notes.

Your cursor should now be in the Notes pane.

3. Click Home > Replace.
4. In the "Find What" box, enter two paragraph codes:

^p^p

5. In the "Replace With" box, enter one paragraph code:

6. Click the "Replace All" button.

Word will replace some of the double returns, but not all of them. And if you try to delete some of the remaining returns, you'll get an error message:

"This is not a valid action for footnotes."

What's going on there is that not all carriage returns are created equal. Some of the returns are "special" note returns, and the only way to delete them is to delete the note itself back in the text.

The solution? A macro, of course. But a macro with a twist. As we've seen, the macro can't just find double returns and replace them with a single return. And trying to delete extra returns results in an error. So let's use that error!

Before running the macro, you must be in Draft view, with your cursor at the top of the Notes pane. (How to get there is explained above.)

In the macro, you'll see a couple of "comments," which are explanations or instructions intended for the person reading the code. Comments are preceded by a single quotation mark ('), which tells the macro to ignore the rest of the text on that line. For example, the first comment in the macro reads:

'To clean returns in endnotes rather than footnotes, change ".Footnotes" to ".Endnotes" in the following line:

And now, here's the macro:

Sub CleanReturnsInNotes()
'To clean returns in endnotes rather than footnotes, change ".Footnotes" to ".Endnotes" in the following line:
NoteCount = ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find

.Text = "^p^p"
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchWildcards = False

End With
Selection.Find.Execute
On Error GoTo TrapTheError
While Selection.Find.Found

Selection.MoveLeft
'The following line may trigger an error!
Selection.Delete
Selection.Find.Execute

Wend
GoTo TheEnd
TrapTheError:

ErrorCount = ErrorCount + 1
Selection.MoveRight
Selection.Delete
If ErrorCount < NoteCount Then Resume Next

TheEnd:
End Sub

Let's look at some of those lines.

NoteCount = ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count

NoteCount is a variable; that is, it's a container that can hold a numerical value—in this case, the number of footnotes in the document. We get that value with the VBA command ActiveDocument.Footnotes.Count.

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting

Just to be safe, these lines clear any formatting that might already be applied to the "Find What" and "Replace With" boxes in Word's find and replace feature.

The following lines, from

With Selection.Find

down to

Selection.Find.Execute

simply find any instances of double paragraph returns. The replacement text is set to nothing, as we're not trying to replace those returns with anything:

.Replacement.Text = ""

Instead, we're going to try to delete the second return, which (unless the notes are really messed up) is a regular return rather than a special note return:

Selection.MoveRight
Selection.Delete

If it's a special note return, then trying to delete it will cause an error, and the macro will execute this line—

On Error GoTo TrapTheError

—which sends the macro to this line:

TrapTheError:

Here's what happens next:

ErrorCount = ErrorCount + 1

Using the variable ErrorCount, we count the number of errors, adding 1 each time we find one. (ErrorCount is initially empty, or zero.)

Selection.MoveRight
Selection.Delete

We move right and delete the next return.

If ErrorCount < NoteCount Then Resume Next

If the number of errors is less than the number of notes, we're not through yet, as one of the remaining notes may still have a bad return next to it. So, we tell the macro to Resume operation at the next command after the error occurred. That command is:

Selection.Find.Execute

In other words, Word looks for the next occurrence of a double return. And this construction—

While Selection.Find.Found

Selection.MoveLeft
'The following line may trigger an error!
Selection.Delete
Selection.Find.Execute

Wend

—ensures that it will keep looking as long as (While) double returns are found. ("Wend" is short for "While End"—it marks the end of the While construction.)

GoTo TheEnd

When no more double returns are found, this line is executed. It exists simply to avoid executing the error trap (TrapTheError and the following lines) after the macro is finished, at which point

TheEnd:

marks the end of the whole operation.

I hope this explanation has helped you understand better how macros work, and in particular how you can actually use Word errors to force Word to do what you want it to do—something that gives me great pleasure.

Even if you don't understand everything that's going on in this macro, you can still use it to clean up extraneous returns in notes—something that should make your editorial life a little bit easier.