Remove parenthesis that contain four digits or etal word vba

laith93 · #3 10-30-2023, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guessed

First, do a wildcard search for
\(* [0-9]{4}*\)
Replace with nothing

Dear Andrew,
Thanks for your comment
It's ok may be, but it has some bugs
if apply it to this text

However, antibiotics have been used to (2016) kill harmful bacteria but inappropriate use of these materials enabled bacterial species to increase resistance to them which results in the emergence of resistance towards bacteria (Mmola et al., 2016). Using silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) could be a good alternative to antibiotics (Huh & Kwon, 2011;Ahluwalia et al., 2014; Allafchian et al., 2016; Bagherzade et al., 2017; Bar et al., 2009; Hsieh et al., 2007; Ibrahim, 2015).

The result
However, antibiotics have been used to kill harmful bacteria but inappropriate use of these materials enabled bacterial species to increase resistance to them which results in the emergence of resistance towards bacteria. Using silver nanoparticles.

Main bugs:
(2016) has been removed
(AgNPs) also has been removed
the text after (AgNPs) has been removed to the end of the paragraph
all above items must be maintained
Also, I noted for some text, it removes the text between two parentheses, in addition to the parentheses themselves (the same case when searching for et al).

Dear Andrew, I suggest merging the search for number and et al in the same condition (also has a bug, in the case of (Huh & Kwon, 2011)).
Or as I noted for all parenthesis that I want to remove, they share this format, comma space four digits ", 1234" ----> (Huh & Kwon, 2011).
So searching for this format, I think it will produce better results.
Here is my code

Code:

Sub RemoveRefParenthesis()
' code applied to selected text

Dim oRng As range
    If Len(Selection.range) = 0 Then
        MsgBox "Select the text first", vbCritical
        Exit Sub
    End If
    Set oRng = Selection.range
    With oRng.Find
        .Text = "\(*[0-9]{4}*\)"
'        .Text = "\(, [0-9]{4}*\)"
'        .Text = "\(*et al*\)"
        .Replacement.Text = ""
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindStop
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchKashida = False
        .MatchDiacritics = False
        .MatchAlefHamza = False
        .MatchControl = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchWildcards = True
        .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
    End With
End Sub

Thanks

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
How to convert text that is enclosed inside parenthesis in a word document into numbered footnotes?	BobT	Word	5	07-27-2018 01:17 PM
Find and remove right parenthesis and preceding 11 characters	kevinbradley57	Excel Programming	11	03-25-2018 08:24 PM
Find and Replace Parenthesis with Itallics	Richard Carr	Word	1	01-06-2015 06:44 PM
Separate/ Remove digits from a string of Numbers	QA_Compliance_Advisor	Excel	3	07-23-2014 04:59 AM
Problems merging in last 4 digits of an account higher than 16 digits	Glynda	Mail Merge	1	04-08-2011 12:17 AM