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Preparing to Use MegaReplacer

 

Before using MegaReplacer to replace text or styles, you’ll need to prepare a “master list” of the text or styles you want to replace. (To replace text formatting [such as bold or italic], no master list is needed.) Here’s how to create your master list:

Creating a Master List for Replacing Text

 

1. Create a new document that will be your master list. Type the text to find, then a pipe symbol (the character on the shifted key next to the BACKSPACE key), then the replacement text, then a carriage return. Please be absolutely accurate in typing the entries the way you want them. The entries can be the same length as a regular Word find or replace string: from 1 to 255 characters. The entries should look something like this:

whilst|while

occurrance|occurrence

millenium|millennium

 

2. Make sure the last entry has a carriage return after it.

3. Make sure these entries are the only things in the document. Don’t include a document title, explanations, comments, or anything else. You can have from 1 to 8,142 entries. Fonts, character formats, and so on are irrelevant.

4. Save the document with a name of your choice but leave it open on the screen as the active document.

Using Word’s Find Options

 

When replacing text, you can use Word’s basic Find options just as you can with Word’s regular Find feature. These options are:

1. Match Case.

2. Find Whole Words Only.

3. Use Pattern Matching (Use Wildcards).

4. Sounds Like.

 

To use these options, add a plus sign and a code letter to the end of each find and replace entry. The code letter is the same as the letter used in Word 95’s Find dialog box to select these options:

“c” for Match Case.

“w” for Find Whole Words Only.

“&” for Match Case and Find Whole Words Only at the same time.

“m” for Pattern Matching (Use Wildcards).

“l” for Sounds Like.

 

You can use only one of these options per entry. Such entries might look like this:

Department|department+c

per|according to+w

p ([0-9]@.\))|p. \1+m

 

Please note that because MegaReplacer uses the pipe symbol and the plus sign as delimiters, it cannot find or replace text that includes the pipe symbol or the plus sign. Also, be aware that with MegaReplacer, you can’t use Word’s Find options to do anything you couldn’t ordinarily do when searching manually. For example, using Word’s Find feature manually, you can try searching a document for a carriage return (^p) with “Use Pattern Matching” turned on. If you do, Word will give you an error message. MegaReplacer won’t give you an error message, but it also won’t find the carriage return. In effect, it will simply ignore that find-and-replace entry. Similarly, if you put several words separated by spaces in Word’s “Find What” box, the “Find Whole Words Only” option is unavailable. This is also true with MegaReplacer, even though you can’t see that it is unavailable. If you have any questions about whether a find-and-replace entry will work with a certain option, you should try it manually in Word. If it won’t work that way, it won’t work with MegaReplacer, either.

Creating a Master List for Replacing Styles

 

1. Create a new document containing the names of the styles you want to find and replace. Type the name of the style to find, then a pipe symbol (the character on the shifted key next to the BACKSPACE key), then the name of the replacement style, then a carriage return. You must type the names of the styles with absolute correctness. The entries should look something like this:

Heading 4|Heading 3

Author|Caption

Normal|Body Text

 

2. Make sure the last entry has a carriage return after it.

3. Make sure these entries are the only things in the document. Don’t include a document title, explanations, comments, or anything else. You can have from 1 to 8,142 entries. Fonts, character formats, and so on are irrelevant.

4. Save the document with a name of your choice, but leave it open on the screen as the active document.

 

Please note that because MegaReplacer uses the pipe symbol and the plus sign as delimiters, it cannot find or replace style names that include the pipe symbol or the plus sign. Also, remember that MegaReplacer can’t find or replace styles that don’t exist in your documents. In addition, it can’t find or replace styles that have been misspelled in your master list, which must be absolutely accurate.