How to select different words at once

FTL · #1 03-08-2016, 02:08 PM

I have big documents with severalllll hundred pages and i'm a little tired to correct word by word every single page. I'm now ready to enter the realms of despair lol

I found it a little bit odd that MS still doesn't allow us to select\highlight different words at once on the navigation pane, using something as simple as semicolon or whatever alike.

So is there any soul out there that can help me out with some kind of macro to search different words at once - i don't know if the macro works for all kinds of languages, i need a Portuguese version, or an English written macro that allows to search Portuguese words.

You have no idea how this would save my life lol

macropod · #2 03-08-2016, 02:44 PM

How are you doing these corrections - via spell-check, via Find/Replace, or just overtyping them one at a time?

FTL · #3 03-08-2016, 04:31 PM

via search results, navigation pane. It's not a matter of replacing words automatically, but "textual cleaning", so to speak.

macropod · #4 03-08-2016, 04:42 PM

What is the search based on? What kind of content are you searching for and what rules, if any, could be used to do the "textual cleaning" automatically?

FTL · #5 03-08-2016, 05:58 PM

I can't do the cleaning automatically. I'm just searching for repeated and (if any) pointless or misplaced words like prepositions, adverbs, and so on. If i had everything highlighted at once on every single page, like the most common prepositions, for instance, i could read faster what is right, wrong or change it for a better sentence.

macropod · #6 03-08-2016, 06:10 PM

Word has no facility for highlighting parts of speech. For prepositions, though, you could use Find/Replace to highlight them all, then remove the highlights when you're done editing. A macro you could use to expedite this is:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Options.DefaultHighlightColorIndex = wdYellow
Dim StrFnd As String, i As Long
StrFnd = Array("above", "about", "across", "against", "along", _
  "among", "around", "at", "before", "behind", "below", "beneath", _
  "beside", "between", "beyond", "by", "down", "during", "except", _
  "for", "from", "in", "inside", "into", "like", "near", "of", _
  "off", "on", "since", "to", "toward", "through", "under", _
  "until", "up", "upon", "with", "within")
With ActiveDocument.Range.Find
  .ClearFormatting
  .Replacement.ClearFormatting
  .Forward = True
  .Wrap = wdFindContinue
  .MatchCase = True
  .MatchWholeWord = True
  .MatchWildcards = False
  .MatchSoundsLike = False
  .MatchAllWordForms = False
  .Replacement.Text = "^&"
  .Replacement.Highlight = True
  For i = 0 To UBound(StrFnd)
    .Text = StrFnd(i)
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  Next
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

When you're done editing, you can re-run the macro with:
.Replacement.Highlight = False
instead of:
.Replacement.Highlight = True

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

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