FileCleaner

Thank you for using FileCleaner for Microsoft Word!

Have you ever wished you could quickly and easily clean up common typographical problems in a manuscript without tediously finding and replacing each one? FileCleaner lets you do just that, replacing double spaces with single spaces, changing double returns to single returns, turning underlining to italic, fixing spacing around ellipses, and so on. FileCleaner will save you hours of time while improving the typographical quality of everything you write or edit.

FileCleaner is especially useful to people who are preparing text for typesetting and are using Microsoft Word as a "front end" for such programs as QuarkXPress, PageMaker, or FrameMaker. Editors and typesetters will find it invaluable, and this documentation is geared primarily to them. FileCleaner is also an excellent tool for desktop or electronic publishing, and writers will appreciate being able to clean up common manuscript problems in one fell swoop.

Running FileCleaner

Before running FileCleaner, be sure to back up your documents in case you later change your mind. In addition, try using FileCleaner on some test files until you understand how it works and what it does. Then you'll be prepared for the real thing.

You can use FileCleaner to clean up documents in two different ways:

1. One item at a time. You can do this by clicking the buttons on the FileCleaner Toolbar, which you can activate by selecting Toolbars under the View menu and clicking the FileCleaner checkbox. This is handy for cleaning up problems as you come across them while editing a document. Please note that this type of cleanup affects only the part of the document you are in. For example, if you are in a footnote panel, it will clean up the footnotes. If you are in the main text, that is what will be cleaned up.

2. All items (or several selected items) at once. Do this by selecting FileCleaner under the FileCleaner menu or by pressing the FileCleaner button at the left of the Toolbar. This option is useful for cleaning up all problems at one time. It is very powerful and is probably the one you will use the most. This type of cleanup affects the main text in a document, footnotes and endnotes, and (on a PC but not a Macintosh) headers and footers. It does not, however, clean up annotations.

When you run FileCleaner to clean up all items at once, the program asks if you want to clean up the active document, all open documents, or all documents in a folder. Select the option that suits your needs.

Cleaning Up All Documents in a Folder

Before cleaning up all documents in a folder, copy them to a working folder called something like “Copy.” That will leave your original files intact in case something goes wrong. Also, make sure only the files you want to clean up are in the Copy folder. Then you won't inadvertently clean up, say, some press-ready files that you have spent many hours editing and formatting.

In addition, make sure none of the files is protected or read only. FileCleaner cleans up the files and then saves them. If the files are protected or read only, FileCleaner will not work. You may also run into problems if your files need to be converted into Microsoft Word from a different word-processing format. Please make sure all of your files are in Microsoft Word format before running the program.

If you select the option to clean up all the documents in a folder, FileCleaner presents a dialog box that allows you to select the folder to which you have copied the files to be cleaned (leaving your original files safe in their original folder). After you have selected the Copy folder, click the OK button or press ENTER to continue.

When FileCleaner is finished and you have looked through the files to be sure they are cleaned up correctly, you can move them from the Copy folder to your original folder.

Selecting Items to Clean Up

The program will show you a list of items you might want to clean up, and you can check the ones you want to use. Please note the two boxes at the bottom that allow you to clear or select all the items on the list. Also note that the items will be cleaned up in the order in which they appear on the list. This is important because some items will not be cleaned up correctly unless other items have been cleaned up first. For example, you can't dependably clean up spacing around ellipses without first cleaning up multiple spaces. (Also keep this in mind when cleaning up individual items with the toolbar buttons.)

When you are finished selecting the items you want to clean up, click the OK button. FileCleaner will do the job as you requested. When it is done, it will display a message saying "Finished!" Click OK, then review your cleaned-up documents. If you change your mind, go back to the original files.

Other Considerations

You may want to run FileCleaner twice: once before you begin editing, and once before you are ready for typesetting or final formatting. Please read the sections entitled "Remove Font Formatting," "Remove Paragraph Formatting," and "Remove Style Formatting" under FileCleaner Options, below, before doing so, however.

Please note that FileCleaner turns off both viewing and marking of revisions while it works.

FileCleaner Options

Here are the various cleaning options FileCleaner provides:

Put Abbreviations in Small Caps

This option puts A.M., P.M., B.C., A.D., B.C.E., and C.E. into small caps, which is how they should appear typographically. Please note that if you abbreviate “chief executive officer” as C.E.O. (with periods) rather than CEO (without periods), this option will put the C.E. into small caps.

Change Underlining to Italics

This option changes text that is underlined into text that is italicized. In the days before word-processing, people used typewriter underlining to indicate text that was to be set in italics. Some writers, even though they are now composing on computer, still continue in that tradition. Underlining, however, should not ordinarily be used in typesetting, and this option allows you to turn it into italics as it should be.

Change Raised Text (3 Points) to Superscript

This option changes text that is raised by three points into superscript. The point of this is that Word documents that have been converted from WordPerfect often have footnote numbers that are raised rather than superscript. This option fixes the problem.

Delete Extraneous Tabs

The proper way to set paragraph indentation is with formatting in a style, not with a tab. That means all tabs at the beginnings of paragraphs should be deleted. This option does the trick. It also replaces multiple tabs inside paragraphs with single tabs so tabular formatting can be done correctly by adjusting tab settings. Warning: If an author has used tabs to do specialized formatting of tables or diagrams, you'll want to use this option with caution.

Replace Multiple Spaces with Single Spaces

Your high-school typing teacher probably told you to put double spaces after the end of each sentence to make your typing "easier to read." Actually, this is a typographical abomination that must be cleaned up before a document is typeset. This option turns any combination of spaces into one space. Warning: If an author has used spaces to do specialized formatting of tables or diagrams, you'll want to use this option with caution.

Delete Spaces around Returns

Spaces around carriage returns are invisible to the eye, but they cause various typographical problems. This option gets rid of them. Because Word does not permit the deletion of returns after footnotes and endnotes, this option does not work with notes.

Replace Multiple Returns with Single Returns

Ordinarily, the proper way to set extra leading between paragraphs or after headings is with formatting in a style, not with extra carriage returns. This option turns any combination of returns into a single return. Because Word does not permit the deletion of returns after footnotes and endnotes, this option does not work with notes. Warning: If an author has used multiple returns to indicate special formatting, you'll want to use this option with caution.

Fix Spacing around Ellipses

Authors have numerous ways of typing ellipses. Some use the horrid little ellipses "character" available in some symbol fonts. Others type three periods in a row with no spacing in between. And there are many other variations. This option fixes them all, with three periods separated by spaces. (The spaces after the first two ellipsis points are nonbreaking so the ellipsis points won't break at the end of a line.)

Change Straight Quotation Marks to Curly Ones

If you are editing a file that contains "straight," old-fashioned quotation marks and apostrophes as found on a typewriter, you can turn them into typographically correct "curly" marks by using this option, which will also activate Word's Autoformat option of turning straight quotation marks to curly ones as you type.

This option also turns single quotation marks at the beginning of certain words into apostrophes. These words are ’til, ’tis, ’tisn’t, ’twas, ’twasn’t, ’twould, ’twouldn’t, and ’em. The same is true of single quotation marks in front of numbers, such as ’99. Except for these exceptions, this option will turn apostrophes at the beginning of words into single quotation marks, which is almost always what they should be.

There is also a macro that does precisely the opposite of this option, turning curly marks into straight ones and turning off the Autoformat option. Its name is FixCurlyQuotationMarks. You can run it under Tools, Macros, and you'll find it especially useful if you are creating Help files.

Fix Commas and Periods outside Quotation Marks

Typographically, commas and periods should be "inside" (to the left of) closing quotation marks. Why? Because they look funny hanging out there all by themselves. This option puts them where they belong.

Fix Punctuation Marks outside Italics

Punctuation should usually be typeset in the character style of the text that precedes it. For example, if a word set in italic type is followed by a question mark, the question mark, too, should be set in italic type. This option makes it so for periods, commas, colons, semicolons, question marks, and exclamation points.

Change Double Hyphens to Em Dashes

Em dashes are used for various purposes, such as setting off an illustrative element from the rest of the sentence. Many authors use double hyphens to indicate em dashes--like this. This option turns each set of hyphens into the dash it should be.

Change Hyphens between Numerals to En Dashes

En dashes are used primarily to indicate inclusive numbers, as in an index. Many authors use hyphens to serve the same purpose, like this: 145-46. This option changes those hyphens into typographically correct en dashes.

Delete Spaces around Dashes

Some authors think it looks nice to leave spaces around both em and en dashes. It doesn't. This option removes those spaces.

Change Ells Used as Ones to Ones

Remember when typewriters didn't even have a character for the numeral one? The ell did double duty, probably to keep the number of keys to a minimum. Now, decades later, some authors still type ells for ones, creating a typographic nightmare. This option fixes all such problems while leaving the real ells intact.

Change Os Used as Zeroes to Zeroes

This problem is similar to the previous one. Some authors type an O when they should type a zero, but typographically the two characters are not the same. This option fixes the mistake.

Remove Font Formatting

Authors often go to great lengths to format their documents using various fonts, point sizes, paragraph formats, and so on. What they don't realize is that such formatting, nice as it may look to them, is nowhere near the look you or your designer will specify. In fact, their formatting usually just gets in the way, making editing and typesetting more difficult than it should be.

This option removes all directly applied font formatting, such as Times New Roman 12 point. However, it retains certain character formatting (bold, italic, underline, word underline, superscript, subscript, small caps, all caps, strikethrough, and hidden) as well as paragraph styles, such as Normal and Heading 1. This leaves you with a document in which you can modify the paragraph styles to format the document properly.

Remove Paragraph Formatting

This option removes all directly applied paragraph formatting, such as Centered or Justified, again so you can adjust paragraph formatting by modifying styles.

Remove Style Formatting

This option applies the Normal style to the entire document, wiping out any other paragraph styles. Warning: If an author has used styles properly to mark various text levels, you may not want to use this option. Also, if you have used styles to format a document and want to retain them, do not use this option.