replacing the full name of elements by their respective symbol, in a long MS Word text.

[BobT]

Could you help me with a macro to replace the full name of elements by their respective symbol, in a long MS Word text. For example:
"Actinium" replaced by "Ac"
"Aluminum" replaced by "Al"
"Americium" replaced by "Am"
"Antimony" replaced by "Sb"
"Argon" replaced by "Ar"


"Arsenic" replaced by "As"
"Astatine" replaced by "At"
"Barium" replaced by "Ba"

Note: There is no " " in the text, before and after.
Thank you

[macropod]

Try the following macro (which would be impossible to record):

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim StrFnd As String, StrRep As String, i As Long
StrFnd = StrFnd & "|Hydrogen|Helium|Lithium|Beryllium|Boron|Carbon|Nitrogen|Oxygen" & _
  "|Fluorine|Neon|Sodium|Magnesium|Aluminium|Silicon|Phosphorus|Sulphur|Chlorine|Argon" & _
  "|Potassium|Calcium|Scandium|Titanium|Vanadium|Chromium|Manganese|Iron|Cobalt|Nickel" & _
  "|Copper|Zinc|Gallium|Germanium|Arsenic|Selenium|Bromine|Krypton|Rubidium|Strontium" & _
  "|Yttrium|Zirconium|Niobium|Molybdenum|Technetium|Ruthenium|Rhodium|Palladium|Silver" & _
  "|Cadmium|Indium|Tin|Antimony|Tellurium|Iodine|Xenon|Caesium|Barium|Lanthanum|Cerium" & _
  "|Praseodymium|Neodymium|Promethium|Samarium|Europium|Gadolinium|Terbium|Dysprosium" & _
  "|Holmium|Erbium|Thulium|Ytterbium|Lutetium|Hafnium|Tantalum|Tungsten|Rhenium|Osmium" & _
  "|Iridium|Platinum|Gold|Mercury|Thallium|Lead|Bismuth|Polonium|Astatine|Radon|Francium" & _
  "|Radium|Actinium|Thorium|Protactinium|Uranium|Neptunium|Plutonium|Americium|Curium" & _
  "|Berkelium|Californium|Einsteinium|Fermium|Mendelevium|Nobelium|Lawrencium|Rutherfordium" & _
  "|Dubnium|Seaborgium|Bohrium|Hassium|Meitnerium|Darmstadtium|Roentgenium|Copernicium" & _
  "|Nihonium|Flerovium|Moscovium|Livermorium|Tennesine|Oganesson"
StrRep = "|H|He|Li|Be|B|C|N|O|F|Ne|Na|Mg|Al|Si|P|S|Cl|Ar|K|Ca|Sc|Ti|V|Cr|Mn|Fe|Co|Ni|Cu|Zn" & _
  "|Ga|Ge|As|Se|Br|Kr|Rb|Sr|Y|Zr|Nb|Mo|Tc|Ru|Rh|Pd|Ag|Cd|In|Sn|Sb|Te|I|Xe|Cs|Ba|La|Ce|Pr|Nd" & _
  "|Pm|Sm|Eu|Gd|Tb|Dy|Ho|Er|Tm|Yb|Lu|Hf|Ta|W|Re|Os|Ir|Pt|Au|Hg|Tl|Pb|Bi|Po|At|Rn|Fr|Ra|Ac" & _
  "|Th|Pa|U|Np|Pu|Am|Cm|Bk|Cf|Es|Fm|Md|No|Lr|Rf|Db|Sg|Bh|Hs|Mt|Ds|Rg|Cn|Nh|Fl|Mc|Lv|Ts|Og"
With ActiveDocument.Range.Find
  .ClearFormatting
  .Replacement.ClearFormatting
  .Forward = True
  .Wrap = wdFindContinue
  .MatchCase = True
  .MatchWholeWord = True
  .MatchWildcards = False
  .MatchSoundsLike = False
  .MatchAllWordForms = False
  For i = 1 To UBound(Split(StrFnd, "|"))
    .Text = Split(StrFnd, "|")(i)
    .Replacement.Text = Split(StrRep, "|")(i)
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  Next
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

For PC macro installation & usage instructions, see: http://www.gmayor.com/installing_macro.htm
For Mac macro installation & usage instructions, see: https://wordmvp.com/Mac/InstallMacro.html

[BobT]

Thank you, Paul. It works fine. Would it be possible to add this condition to it: "only original words like Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, etc., are to be changed".
Best,
Bob

[macropod]

Originally Posted by BobT

Would it be possible to add this condition to it: "only original words like Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, etc., are to be changed".

I don't know what you mean by that.

[BobT]

In the text of my document, I would like to keep the full name of the elements--Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, etc., but in the footnotes, I would like to use the abbreviations instead.
Your macro changes indiscriminately all full names for their corresponding abbreviation, whether they appear in the body of my document or in the footnotes.
Best,
Bob

[macropod]

There is nothing indiscriminate about the macro. Your request said nothing about footnotes, so the macro doesn't process them. If you wanted to process footnotes instead of the document body, you should have said so. To process footnotes, change:
With ActiveDocument.Range.Find
to:
With ActiveDocument.StoryRanges(wdFootnotesStory).Find

[BobT]

You're right. In my initial request, I had not realized that such request could have been included at once. Thank you again, Paul. You saved me hours of manual work, with the inherent mistake potential.