Formatting Help

caution5697 · #1 04-22-2009, 12:46 PM

I am trying to format a book that I can put on my amazon kindle, but im having some formatting problems. The only real way to explain this problem is by seeing a picture

I need it all to look like the bottom part that is longer. The problem is that the type is already broken up into a column with specific line lengths. I need to make them all into one line essentially so that if i were to resize the page, they would resize. Sorry if this is confusing, I can clarify if it doesn't make any sense to you guys
Thanks in Advance
Andrew

Bird_FAT · #2 04-22-2009, 01:41 PM

In the find and replace, under 'more > special' you can find the paragraph marker (^p). With a bit of fiddling, you will find that that is all you need!

Ctrl+H will bring up the Find and Replace menu

First Find [^p^p]
Replace [**]

then Find [^p]
Replace [ ] - 1 space

finally Find [**]
Replace [^p^p]

This then takes all the paragraphs (1 marker at the end of the paragraph, and one clear space in between) and turns them into another symbol [**], then it takes all the paragraph markers that are at the end of each line and replaces them with a space - this gets all the lines back together, finally replacing all the paragraph breaks.

This is only a rough idea, whether you need to tweak it is dependent on your file.

If you record this as a macro in Normal.dot, the you can run it again later, when you want to format another document!

caution5697 · #3 04-22-2009, 02:03 PM

wow, thanks for the fast response time.
This is almost exactly what I, i tried it out, and it worked almost perfectly. What happened was i ran it on the entire document, which is several hundred pages long, and it compressed it into one large paragraph. This is an improvement over what i had before, but not the paragraphs that are supposed to exist in the book are gone. Is there any way that I can have word only do that command to paragraphs that start with a lowercase letter? this would work for 99% of the time because formal paragraphs start with an uppercase letter, and there broken paragraphs do not unless the word that appears first in a proper noun or something capitalized. That tiny margin for error really doesnt make any difference to me. If you know some way that i can make that happen, I would be so happy!
Thanks Again!
Andrew

Bird_FAT · #4 04-22-2009, 11:53 PM

I would say the quickest, and probably most accurate, way would be to run through the document and add your [**] symbols yourself, then just Find and Replace the paragraph markers. - I know that this isn't the ideal solution, but having done the same thing that you are aiming to do, and having done it a million and one times, I just found it the most accurate!

It IS possible to write some VBA code to do what you want - BUT, it WON'T be anywhere near as accurate. For example, you asked about sorting it by paragraph - the problem is, your document has a paragraph marker at the end of every line, oops!

How about adapting your search string and turning it into a VBA code string:

Code:

Sub Find_and_Replace_Loop()

' Code String Written by Bird - 2009
' This macro will find and replace
' a) all full stops, question marks and exclamation marks followed by double paragraph markers
' b) 2 paragraph markers together - this is repeated in case there are 3 or four together
' c) all single paragraph markers, into spaces
' d) finally putting paragraph markers back.


    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = ".^p^p"
        .Replacement.Text = ".**"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "?^p^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "?**"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "!^p^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "!**"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^p^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^p^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^p^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "^p"
        .Replacement.Text = " "
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "**"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
        Loop
End Sub

This is just an example of what you can do. I have expanded the double paragraph marker string to start with [. ! ?] as these would be the markers at the end of a complete sentence in a paragraph.

Have a go at it and see if you can adapt it to your needs.

To add the VBA code:

Open Word
Use Alt+F11 to open your VBA window
In the Left hand 'tree' window look for Normal and open the Modules
If there is no Module, use the Insert menu to add one
Once you have a Module, double-click it to open
Copy and Paste the above code

By putting this in Normal you are able to use this macro in any document.
To run it - (2003) Tools > Macro > Macros (or Alt+F8)
(2007) View > Macros > View Macros (or Alt+F8)

Have fun with the code - play around with it to suit your needs.

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