If you've been reading Editorium Update for a while, you know about wildcard searches and some of the neat things you can do with them. If you don't know about them, you can learn by reading these past issues of the newsletter:
http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1705963026
http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706069286
http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706167662
http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706267069
http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706365638
http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1706458823
Even though I use wildcard searches all the time, I don't do a very good job of saving my wildcard entries so I can use them again. But that's going to change when I make my wildcard dictionary. The dictionary will include entries in the following format:
* A description of what the Find and Replace wildcard strings do.
* The wildcard Find and Replace strings themselves.
* Some keywords I can search for if I'm looking for wildcard strings for a certain purpose.
* Before-and-after examples of what the wildcard strings do.
* Other comments.
Here's an example, with a wildcard string you may be able to use:
DESCRIPTION: Find parenthetical publishing information in source citations and replace it with nothing to help in changing citations to short form.
FIND WHAT: ([A-z ,.]@:[!)]@[0-9]{4})
RELACE WITH: [nothing]
KEY WORDS: publishing information, source, citation, footnotes, endnotes, books, parentheses, long, short, delete
BEFORE: Jack M. Lyon, Total Word Domination (Edina, Minn.: PocketPCPress, 2001), p. 237.
AFTER: Jack M. Lyon, Total Word Domination, p. 237.
COMMENTS: Won't find or delete other parenthetical text. *Note that the Find string includes a space in front of it, and that space is necessary.*
I'll save this kind of information for all of my wildcard strings henceforth and forever. Maybe you'd like to do something similar with yours.
I'll tell you what: If you'll send me your favorite wildcard strings with brief descriptions of what they do, I'll compile them into one big dictionary and publish it in a future issue of the newsletter for all to share. Please send your entries here:
mailto:editor [at symbol] editorium.com
If you don't have any, it's time to read those newsletter articles I mentioned above. You'll be glad you did!
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READERS WRITE
Continuing our Dvorak keyboard discussion, Rich Shattenberg wrote:
If you can find an old copy of Mavis Beacon, version 5, it has instructions for the Dvorak keyboard. I tried to convert once a year ago but something happened along the way and I reverted back to the old Qwerty system. It may have helped me if I had been using an actual Dvorak keyboard instead of a Qwerty keyboard.
Thanks to Rich for the useful information.
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RESOURCES
About.com has a valuable list of free software and other resources for word processing and desktop publishing:
http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/freebiesmisc/
