Using wildcards to italicize magazine/book titles

cirerita · #1 11-30-2022, 03:35 AM

Hello,
I have a loooong list of book/magazine titles--well over three or four thousand titles-- and I would need to find a way to italicize those titles.

The listing is something like this:

46. First Magazine 1.8, April 1960
47. Second Magazine 36, April 1960
1144. First Book, September 1981
1145. Second Book, September 1981

I'm a complete beginner re. the use of wildcards. If I use the following wildcard, I'm able to get to the first letter of the book/magazine title, but I don't know how to select the full title, not just the first letter:

[0-9]. [a-zA-Z]

Titles are always preceded by a number, which is followed by a period, and then comes the magazine/book title, always followed by a comma or a number.

The only variable which is unknown here is the length of the title. Is there any wildcard that would allow me to select the full title given there's always a comma or a number after the title?

There's a lot of additional info in each entry, so I can't export this to Excel, where it should be fairly easy to do.

Thanks!!

Robert2 · #2 11-30-2022, 04:11 AM

Try the following wildcard Find/Replace:
Find=[0-9]{1,}.*^13
Replace=^&
with italic format

macropod · #3 11-30-2022, 04:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert2

Try the following wildcard Find/Replace:
Find=[0-9]{1,}.*^13
Replace=^&
with italic format

That formats everything, not just the titles.

cirerita · #4 11-30-2022, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robert2

Try the following wildcard Find/Replace:
Find=[0-9]{1,}.*^13
Replace=^&
with italic format

Thanks, but I get the following error message: "The Find What text contains a Pattern Match expression which is not valid"

For some reason, the comma in {1,} does not seem to be valid. If a remove that comma, the Find What text selects the complete line, not only the text.

macropod · #5 11-30-2022, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cirerita

Thanks, but I get the following error message: "The Find What text contains a Pattern Match expression which is not valid"

For some reason, the comma in {1,} does not seem to be valid. If a remove that comma, the Find What text selects the complete line, not only the text.

That indicates you're using a system with non-English regional settings, for which you would need to replace that ',' with ';'.

cirerita · #6 11-30-2022, 08:00 AM

Thanks, that did the trick indeed. But as you pointed out, that formats the complete line, not just the titles.

I tried your macro and it seems to work when the title has one word only; if there are two words, then that entry is skipped. Many books/magazines have several words in their titles. Is it possible to italicize all title words?

macropod · #7 11-30-2022, 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cirerita

I tried your macro and it seems to work when the title has one word only; if there are two words, then that entry is skipped. Many books/magazines have several words in their titles. Is it possible to italicize all title words?

On the contrary, the macro turns the examples you posted into:
46. First Magazine 1.8, April 1960
47. Second Magazine 36, April 1960
1144. First Book, September 1981
1145. Second Book, September 1981
Which is consistent with your description in post #1:

Quote:

Originally Posted by cirerita

Titles are always preceded by a number, which is followed by a period, and then comes the magazine/book title, always followed by a comma or a number.

macropod · #8 11-30-2022, 04:15 AM

You really need a macro for this:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Dim i As Long
With ActiveDocument.Range
  With .Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.ClearFormatting
    .Text = "[0-9].[ a-zA-Z]@[,0-9]"
    .Replacement.Text = ""
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindStop
    .Format = False
    .MatchWildcards = True
  End With
  Do While .Find.Execute
    i = i + 1
    .Start = .Start + 3
    .End = .End - 1
    .Font.Italic = True
    .Start = .Paragraphs.Last.Range.End
  Loop
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
MsgBox i & " titles formatted."
End Sub

For PC macro installation & usage instructions, see: Installing Macros
For Mac macro installation & usage instructions, see: Word:mac - Install a Macro

cirerita · #9 12-01-2022, 03:38 AM

That did work, thanks a lot!

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