A way to auto-copy certain parts of text

akherousia · #1 06-13-2020, 12:55 PM

Hello everyone,

I have this kind of question, I'm not sure if it's possible but hope dies last.

I am writing a paper, the links to used sources are written in the format: [smith, p.21].
Because of my laziness I did not copy these links while writing and I am now facing the situation that I need to make a list of sources and they are all scattered throughout the text.

So i've been wondering: is it possible to somehow auto-copy the these square brackets bits '[***]' to the end of the document? I mean I could find these bits by typing [ in search, yes, but I would have to copy everything manually and that would take a lot of time since I have LOTS of these things.

I would appreciate any help.

Thank you.

macropod · #2 06-13-2020, 08:04 PM

1. Format all of your text as hidden.
2. Use a wildcard Find/Replace, where:
• Find = \[*\]
• Replace = ^&
with the replacement set to 'not hidden'
3. Copy the document content
4. Format all of your text as NOT hidden.
5. Go to the end of the document and use Paste Special>Unformatted Text.

gmayor · #3 06-13-2020, 08:13 PM

Depending on wwhether you have used [ ] elsewhere in the document the following macro should work

Code:

Sub Macro1()
Dim oRng As Range
Dim oColl As Collection
Dim i As Integer
    Set oColl = New Collection
    Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range
    With oRng.Find
        Do While .Execute(findText:="\[*,*\]", MatchWildcards:=True)
            oColl.Add oRng.Text
        Loop
    End With
    For i = 1 To oColl.Count
        ActiveDocument.Range.InsertAfter vbCr & oColl(i)
        DoEvents
    Next i
lbl_Exit:
    Set oRng = Nothing
    Set oColl = Nothing
    Exit Sub
End Sub

akherousia · #4 06-14-2020, 03:40 AM

Thank you very much for your help! I have found an easy solution based on your advice.

In a copy of the file I used:
Find \]*\[
Replace with ^p
Use wildcards on

This removes all of the text apart from the stuff that was in the brackets and replaces it with a paragraph so that each bit from the brackets starts with a new line.
Only the first and the last bits of text don't get removed, but these are east enough to be deleted manually.

Thank you!

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