Find and highlight all words ending in -ly

RBLampert · #1 10-15-2012, 09:33 AM

It seems like this ought to be really easy. I’m trying to write a macro for MS Word 2010 that will find all words ending in –ly in a document and highlight them. The code below will find the first such word and highlight it, but stops there. The commented-out Do loop doesn’t end if it’s run.

Code:

Sub Highlight_adverb() 
     '
     ' Highlight_adverb Macro
     ' Finds and highlights words that end in ly.
     '
     ' Go to the beginning of the piece being checked
     '
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory 
     '
     ' Clear any previous search targets
     '
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting 
     '
     ' Create Do loop that runs until the end of the document is reached
     '
     ' Do
     '
     ' Find example of word ending in "ly ", select the whole word, and highlight it
     '
    With Selection.Find 
        .Text = "ly" 
        .Forward = True 
        .Wrap = wdFindStop 
        .MatchSuffix = True 
    End With 
    Selection.Find.Execute 
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1 
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend 
    Selection.MoveLeft Unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1, Extend:=wdExtend 
    Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise 
    Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdTurquoise 
     '
     ' Move forward one word to avoid reselecting the word just highlighted
     '
    Selection.MoveRight Unit:=wdWord, Count:=1 
     ' Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
     '
     ' ...and loop
     '
     ' Loop While Selection.EndOf(Unit:=wdStory)
End Sub

This code (below), on the other hand, finds And highlights all –ly suffixes but Not the complete word.

Code:

Sub highlight_ly_2() 
     '
     ' highlight_ly_2 Macro
     '
     ' Go to the beginning of the piece being checked
     '
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory 
     '
     ' Find and highlight all ly suffixes
     '
    With Selection.Find 
        .ClearFormatting 
        .Replacement.ClearFormatting 
        .Replacement.Highlight = True 
        .Text = "ly" 
        .Replacement.Text = "ly" 
        .Forward = True 
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue 
        .Format = True 
        .MatchSuffix = True 
    End With 
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll      
End Sub

How do I get the code to do both? I feel like I’m missing one simple command but have no idea what it is.

macropod · #2 10-15-2012, 05:31 PM

You really don't need a macro for this. A wildcard Find/Replace will do the job, where:
Find = <[! ]@ly>
Replace = ^&
and the replacement format is set to your highlight colour. If you really want it as a macro, simply switch on the macro recorder and record a wildcard Find/Replace with the above parameters.

PS: When posting code, please use the code tags. They're on the 'Go Advanced' tab.

RBLampert · #3 10-15-2012, 09:49 PM

For a moment, there, Paul, you had me really excited. I'd never seen the wildcard find and replace function before, so I thought I was learning something new. Then I tried it. Didn't work, not even after making sure I included the space after the exclamation point. DRAT! Suggestions?

And yes, I do want this as a macro because it's only step 1 of 3 I eventually want the macro to perform.

macropod · #4 10-15-2012, 10:13 PM

Did you check the 'use wildcards' option? The Find expression I posted will find every word ending in 'ly', including words like 'fly', 'ply' & 'sly'. If you wan't to exclude such 3-letter words, you could use:
Find = <[! ][! ]@ly>
That'll still find words like 'ally' & 'only', though. You can't really tell Word to find adverbs only.

macropod · #5 10-16-2012, 04:08 AM

Cross-posted at: http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1695862
For cross-posting etiquette, please read: http://www.excelguru.ca/content.php?184

RBLampert · #6 10-16-2012, 08:19 AM

D'oh!

That was too obvious. Hang on a second while I try again...

How cool is THAT???

Regarding your comment about highlighting non-adverbs, you're right--that's step 2. I have a list of the most common nouns and verbs that end in -ly, so my plan was to create an array containing all of them (about 50), have the macro search for them, and unhighlight any that it finds. Is there a smarter way to do that?

Thanks!

macropod · #7 10-16-2012, 02:39 PM

Well, if you only want to find and highlight particular words, you'd simply use Find/Replace to look for those words, not any word ending in 'ly'. See, for example:
https://www.msofficeforums.com/word/...html#post17703

RBLampert · #8 10-16-2012, 03:52 PM

Actually, with a bit of tweaking the code you posted over at the reference above looks like it should work (may be a few days before I can try it, though). I'd just substitute the words I want with the ones you listed there (dog,cat,pig...). Since the words the macro would be looking for would already be highlighted, though, I would not want to clear the formatting and would change the .Replacement.Highlight state to False, right?

Looks pretty straight-forward. I'll let you know next week if/how it worked.

Thanks again.

macropod · #9 10-16-2012, 05:55 PM

If you want to approach it that way, you'd add:
.Highlight = True
and change:
.Replacement.Highlight = True
to:
.Replacement.Highlight = False
No other changes should be required. The ClearFormatting code clears any format conditions left over from previous Find/Replace instructions - it has no effect on the document content.

RBLampert · #10 10-23-2012, 03:55 PM

Hi, Paul. Good news and bad news. The good news is the code you referred me to to unhighlight specific words works like a champ. So I figured I'd use it again, with the adjustments you recommended, to highlight another set of adverbs. That worked, too! Cool!

The bad news is this: the first macro we discussed--the one that uses wildcards in the find-and-replace function--does something odd. When the word found is the first word in a paragraph, the macro highlights not only it but the last word of the previous paragraph! I tried changing the .MatchWholeWords condition to True but that didn't fix the problem.

With just this one problem outstanding, I'm thrilled that things are going so well.

macropod · #11 10-23-2012, 04:00 PM

Try changing:
.Text = "<[! ][! ]@ly>"
to:
.Text = "<[!^09-^13 ][!^09-^13 ]@ly>"

RBLampert · #12 10-23-2012, 04:19 PM

Awesome! That did it! I don't know why you repeated the material in square brackets. I used that just once and it worked.

Now I'm curious: what do ^!, ^09, and ^13 mean? (Newbie question.)

Final test: put all the pieces together and see what happens...and...SUCCESS!

macropod · #13 10-23-2012, 04:35 PM

The repeat ensures both 3-letter and 4-letter words are excluded. I'm not immediately aware of any 4-letter adverbs.

RBLampert · #14 10-23-2012, 04:45 PM

I can think of a couple four-letter adverbs off the top of my head: ably and only. There aren't many but they do need to be accounted for. Since I did not include the repeated code, the macro found them.

This is great stuff, Paul. Thanks for your help.

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