Ctrl+F entire bodies of text?

[grumblid]

I've got documents with big, unorganized piles of text. So I often use Ctrl+F to find keywords to cut and paste sentences and paragraphs that have those keywords. It's just to better organize things into individual files.

It doesn't take a lot of effort to do something like 'Ctrl+F, select all instances of the word 'future,' make those all bold and red (to make them easier to track down in the pile), and then manually cut and paste each of those bodies of text into a new file.

But I was wondering, is there a way to make 'select all' highlight not just the word I search, but the entire body of text that word is in? That way all I gotta do is cut and paste all those bodies at once?

I've apparently got Word 2003 still, so let me know if I need a newer version to do this. Thanks to anyone who can help.

[Charles Kenyon]

I do not know how to do what you want, but Word 2003 will be able to do it as well as any later versions.

[gmayor]

Define 'entire body of text that the word is in'.

[grumblid]

Originally Posted by gmayor

Define 'entire body of text that the word is in'.

Sure :]

For example if I Ctrl+F the word 'city,' the locations of that word would be on a single sentence, in some cases two, in some cases an entire paragraph.

As in: 'I went to the city.' I want to take the whole sentence, even if it's just by itself.

Or: 'I went to the city. There was a ton of traffic.' I want both sentences, as a body of text.

Or a paragraph; it would take the whole thing. Basically, any size body of text that contains the word city, I want highlighted so I can just cut and paste it elsewhere. Kind of like a triple-click, except you're highlighting multiple bodies instead of just one.

[gmayor]

What you ask is not possible manually, and a macro cannot make those sorts of decisions. You would have to tell the macro what you wanted to do with each found term. I don't see any macro solution being more viable than simply searching for city and deciding what parts to select manually.

[grumblid]

Originally Posted by gmayor

What you ask is not possible manually, and a macro cannot make those sorts of decisions. You would have to tell the macro what you wanted to do with each found term. I don't see any macro solution being more viable than simply searching for city and deciding what parts to select manually.

Ah, okay

Well at least now I know it's not possible. Thank you for answering :]

Btw, I don't suppose there's any other kind of program out there that could do something like this?

[Charles Kenyon]

Let me get this straight. You want a computer program to read your mind and do what you want? I think that is at least 20 years out.

[grumblid]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

Let me get this straight. You want a computer program to read your mind and do what you want? I think that is at least 20 years out.

That would be pretty convenient, thanks ;{D

Nah, just something that could highlight bodies of text containing the words I specify.

[Charles Kenyon]

Jjust something that could highlight bodies of text containing the words I specify.

The thing is, you are not specifying. A vba solution to select the sentence or paragraph could be done. The procedure cannot decide which for you.

[grumblid]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

The thing is, you are not specifying. A vba solution to select the sentence or paragraph could be done. The procedure cannot decide which for you.

Yeah I don't know how to make something like that. Sounds cool though! :{D

I guess when I said program I meant a word processor like MS Word. Like maybe one that could do what Word can't.

I emailed some people who might be able to answer my question. Maybe someone here could help me before they reply back: Can WordPerfect do something like this? I've never used that, so I dunno. If you know any word processors with cool tricks and features, I'd appreciate anyone sharing the names so I can look them up :]

[Charles Kenyon]

Again, you are asking for mind reading from a computer program. If you cannot specify what area you want selected, do not expect the program to guess.

AFAIK, there are no mind-reading computer programs.

[grumblid]

Originally Posted by Charles Kenyon

Again, you are asking for mind reading from a computer program. If you cannot specify what area you want selected, do not expect the program to guess.

AFAIK, there are no mind-reading computer programs.

I'll try again :3

Here's what I'm asking: When I Ctrl+F to highlight every instance of the word 'Office' for example. I was wondering. If there is a program. That has the option to also highlight the words around each 'Office' it finds. The sentence it's in, or the paragraph that its in. It'll highlight all of them.

The specification is Office. And, the option to 'grab everything around each Office in the entire document.' Again, like a bunch of triple clicks all at once, targeting our specified word.

So after doing this, you'd have not just every instance of 'Office' highlighted, but the entire sentences and paragraphs that have Office in them would be highlighted. Nothing else; if it's a sentence or paragraph that doesn't have Office, it doesn't get highlighted

If MSWord can't do this, that's cool. I was just curious if anyone knew of other options. Or if its just the way it is, I'd like to know if there's simply no way any program could do this. Which I hope isn't the case, because this feature would save me so much time <3

[Guessed]

Try a macro like this to highlight any paragraphs that contain the string provided by the user.

Sub HighlightHits()
  Dim aPara As Paragraph, sFind As String
  sFind = LCase(InputBox("What are we looking for today?", "Finder", "Office"))
  ActiveDocument.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
  For Each aPara In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
    If InStr(LCase(aPara.Range.Text), sFind) > 0 Then
      aPara.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdDarkYellow
    End If
  Next aPara
End Sub

[grumblid]

Originally Posted by Guessed

Try a macro like this to highlight any paragraphs that contain the string provided by the user.

Sub HighlightHits()
  Dim aPara As Paragraph, sFind As String
  sFind = LCase(InputBox("What are we looking for today?", "Finder", "Office"))
  ActiveDocument.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdNoHighlight
  For Each aPara In ActiveDocument.Paragraphs
    If InStr(LCase(aPara.Range.Text), sFind) > 0 Then
      aPara.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdDarkYellow
    End If
  Next aPara
End Sub

Thank you, this is almost exactly what I had in mind! You are awesome~

I take the blame though, because I forgot that highlight was a thing you can do on Word, and I used that term here when I should've said 'select.' I apologize

Is it possible to make a macro that does just as the one you posted does, except instead of highlighting those areas it 'selects' them, allowing you to use 'cut' and 'copy' on all those areas at once? That's what I've been after all this time ^ ^'

[Charles Kenyon]

And a different macro could handle sentences, but the macro can't decide, by itself, which you want unless you give it more criteria.