Word Macro to Find a phrase followed by a number and a lower case letter, capitalizing the letter

rekent · #1 01-14-2025, 01:40 AM

Hello. I am trying to search a document for the phrase FIG., FIGs. or FIGS. followed by any number and a lower case letter. For example, FIG. 1a. I'm wanting to capitalize the A so that the resulting text is FIG. 1A.

I thought this would do it, but it doesn't, and I'm not sure where I went wrong. The find and basic replace are straightforward enough that I assume it has to be in the UCase portion. Any guidance on where I went wrong?

Code:

With ActiveDocument.Content.Find
  .Text = "(FIG. [1-9])([a-z])"
  .Replacement.Text = "\1"UCase(\2)
  .MatchWildcards = true
  .Text = "(FIG[Ss]. [1-9])([a-z])"
  .Replacement.Text = "\1"UCase(\2)
  .MatchWildcards = true
End With

Bonus points if anyone has an idea on how to tackle a string of multiple similar to "FIGS. 1a, 3b, ..., and 11f ...".

macropod · #2 01-14-2025, 05:10 AM

If your figure references use Word's cross-referencing, no amount of changing the case via Find/Replace will have a lasting effect on them, since they'll revert any time something causes the references to update. You'll need to either change them at the source or add an \* Upper switch to the cross-reference fields - the former is preferable.

Guessed · #3 01-14-2025, 01:45 PM

As Paul suggested, this is not simple if the figure numbers and/or letters are fields (and they should be either seq or ref fields) but as you wrote the examples showing just text here is a possible solution that doesn't go for the bonus points.

Code:

  With ActiveDocument.Content.Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.Font.AllCaps = True
    .Text = "FIG[.sS]{1,2} [1-9]{1,}[a-z]"
    .Replacement.Text = ""
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindContinue
    .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

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