Find & Replace: substitute red-coloured words with underscores

tinfanide · #1 10-06-2012, 02:24 AM

Find & Replace.doc

Please see the attachment. Many thanks.

macropod · #2 10-06-2012, 09:20 PM

Hi Tinfanide,

Replacing character-for-character with underscores is easy enough unsing Find/Replace, but:
• underscores are typically not the same width as the other characters you'll be replacing (see https://www.msofficeforums.com/word/...html#post38158 for comparative widths in 12pt TNR). That means one would have to calculate the string width, then substitute however many underscores will give an approximation of that width; and
• things can get very messy where line breaks are involved. In effect, each line has to be processed independently.
Ultimately, a fairly complex macro would be required. If this is for redaction purposes, see: http://redaction.codeplex.com/

tinfanide · #3 10-06-2012, 11:04 PM

Yes, ya're right, macropod.

Before I asked, I'd forgotten one thing. I just used the Format option in the Find And Replace box without specifying the use of wildcards (?) and ended up with

a block of words (with the formatting) turning out to be just a single underscore and

that's why I came here and asked. Now just put ? in the Find What area and Replace all and it does what I have wanted.

And even before I used such a simple Find/Replace function, I'd written a macro:

Code:

Sub test()

With ActiveDocument.Range.Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .ClearHitHighlight
    .MatchWildcards = True
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindContinue
    .Font.ColorIndex = wdRed
    .Execute FindText:="?", Format:=True, ReplaceWith:="_", Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End With

End Sub

But of course, it does not accurately deal with the length of different characters as you said.

Thank you for the references given.

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