Microsoft Office Forums

Go Back   Microsoft Office Forums > >

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 08-25-2019, 03:24 PM
Genericname1111 Genericname1111 is offline Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Windows 7 64bit Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Office 97-2003
Novice
Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97)
 
Join Date: Aug 2019
Posts: 17
Genericname1111 is on a distinguished road
Default Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97)

Hi,



I use Word 97 at my work for transcription, with a Q and A format at the start of each line, and text after each Q and A. The problem is that sometimes I accidentally use A or Q twice in a row, and it can be easy to miss this. Ideally I want to be able to quickly find repeated instances with find and replace, but I don't know how to do this because there's text between each Q and A. Is there a way to represent text after the first letter of each line as a wildcard that I can exclude, so that I can then find repetition between the first letters of lines? If I just had Qs and As by themselves this would be trivial, as I could just go find Q^pQ or A^pA to identify repetition. There is the option of replacing all text besides the Qs and As at the start of each line with nothing, but since I can't record this as a macro, this doesn't really save much time.

Thanks.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 08-25-2019, 04:18 PM
Guessed's Avatar
Guessed Guessed is offline Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Windows 10 Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Office 2016
Expert
 
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Canberra/Melbourne Australia
Posts: 3,932
Guessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant futureGuessed has a brilliant future
Default

Can you post a sample doc that demonstrates the lines you want to find.
__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 08-27-2019, 06:20 AM
Stefan Blom's Avatar
Stefan Blom Stefan Blom is offline Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Windows 10 Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Office 2019
Moderator
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Posts: 3,871
Stefan Blom is a name known to allStefan Blom is a name known to allStefan Blom is a name known to allStefan Blom is a name known to allStefan Blom is a name known to allStefan Blom is a name known to all
Default

For future documents, you can set up Q and A styles; see Q&A Styles in Word 2007/2010.

For the existing situation, I believe we need some examples, as Guessed wrote.
__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 08-27-2019, 06:53 AM
kilroyscarnival kilroyscarnival is offline Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Windows 7 64bit Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Office 2010
Expert
 
Join Date: May 2019
Posts: 344
kilroyscarnival is just really nicekilroyscarnival is just really nicekilroyscarnival is just really nicekilroyscarnival is just really nice
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Genericname1111 View Post
Is there a way to represent text after the first letter of each line as a wildcard that I can exclude, so that I can then find repetition between the first letters of lines?
I like the styles option for your future work.

This isn't an elegant solution, but depending on how much text you have, it may serve your purpose.

Copy your entire segment of text in Word and paste into an Excel worksheet. You may have to check that your defaults (from your last use of text-to-columns) is not going to automatically delineate by space or comma. Depending on your styles and formatting, it could drop the text into separate cells by paragraph.

Then insert a column to the left of all your text. Using the LEFT formula, you can ask it to return the leftmost, or first, character, in that cell to the right. (Example: "=LEFT(B2,1)" where B2 contains your first paragraph, and 1 is the number of characters you want it to return. You could then filter (and perhaps color code, to aid your at-a-glance review) for every Q and every A to make sure that they run in sequence. Filter the Q's and make the background yellow, and the A's blue, and when you unfilter you can see at a glance there should be a yellow/blue/yellow/blue pattern.

Or, for that matter, use Find/Replace in Word to replace every "Q:" with a "Q:" that is a larger font and bright red, and similarly for every "A:" or how you have it formatted, in green. It should be easier to eyeball down the pages, and at the end you can use your styles to reset the formatting back to normal.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 09-11-2019, 06:26 PM
Genericname1111 Genericname1111 is offline Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Windows 7 64bit Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Office 97-2003
Novice
Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97)
 
Join Date: Aug 2019
Posts: 17
Genericname1111 is on a distinguished road
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by kilroyscarnival View Post
I like the styles option for your future work.

This isn't an elegant solution, but depending on how much text you have, it may serve your purpose.

Copy your entire segment of text in Word and paste into an Excel worksheet. You may have to check that your defaults (from your last use of text-to-columns) is not going to automatically delineate by space or comma. Depending on your styles and formatting, it could drop the text into separate cells by paragraph.

Then insert a column to the left of all your text. Using the LEFT formula, you can ask it to return the leftmost, or first, character, in that cell to the right. (Example: "=LEFT(B2,1)" where B2 contains your first paragraph, and 1 is the number of characters you want it to return. You could then filter (and perhaps color code, to aid your at-a-glance review) for every Q and every A to make sure that they run in sequence. Filter the Q's and make the background yellow, and the A's blue, and when you unfilter you can see at a glance there should be a yellow/blue/yellow/blue pattern.

Or, for that matter, use Find/Replace in Word to replace every "Q:" with a "Q:" that is a larger font and bright red, and similarly for every "A:" or how you have it formatted, in green. It should be easier to eyeball down the pages, and at the end you can use your styles to reset the formatting back to normal.
Thank you, I don't have excel at work but the find replace option has proven quite effective.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Text showing as a column of one letter per line saram3 Word 2 11-14-2017 01:46 PM
Find This Or That On Line Six of Word Document StephenRay Word VBA 33 09-29-2017 02:01 PM
Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Use L and R arrow to move cursor letter to letter, not top of the line mellowkitten Word 2 05-12-2016 07:23 PM
Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Bigger font on first letter of first line leaves large gap on that line CrossReach Word 1 04-12-2016 09:23 AM
Is there a way to only find the first letter of each line? (Word 97) Bad view when using Find and Find & Replace - Word places found string on top line paulkaye Word 4 12-06-2011 11:05 PM

Other Forums: Access Forums

All times are GMT -7. The time now is 02:47 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions Inc.
Search Engine Optimisation provided by DragonByte SEO (Lite) - vBulletin Mods & Addons Copyright © 2024 DragonByte Technologies Ltd.
MSOfficeForums.com is not affiliated with Microsoft