Saturday

29 January 2011

Well, here's a lesson learned about trying to make a global change in a Microsoft Word document... if you try to change the name "Lee" with another name, say, Brian, then words such as "sleeping" and "leeching" become "sBrianping" and "Brianching."

Over 107 pages, that's a lot of crap to go back and look for.

I am very tempted to leave all those weird words, just to make the editor eventually earn her $5.62...

11 comments:

Angel, Kirby and Max said...

That was a hard lesson. I learned it once but forgot it!

kenju said...

Oh, holy cow. I'll try to remember that.

Katelin said...

In future, take a lesson from Ender: if you set it to look for 'Lee ,' as in Lee(space), it won't do that. Of course, you also have to tell it to look for Lee, and Lee. and Lee' and so forth. Or you can just use ctrl+h to find them but replace them individually.

Or, of course, you can leave it to your editor and stick around to see her expression when she runs across those words.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure you can look for Lee with a capital, can't you? (match case) Of course that wouldn't prevent 'Leeching' from becoming 'Brianching'. And searching for 'Lee ' with a space after won't catch 'Lee,' etc. But it may catch most, then you'd just have to do a search for 'Lee' after the replace and check them one by one, but there shouldn't be too many.

The Cougar said...

Actually, using "" (without the quotes)and checking use wildcards would have replaced only "Lee", not Leech or sleep, etc. Check out these instructions from microsoft: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/find-and-replace-text-or-other-items-HA001230392.aspx

The Cougar said...

Hmm, sorry it didn't seem to print what to use, probably thought it was an html tag. Trying again, you use <Lee>. The less than symbol means search for this at the beginning of words and the greater than symbol means search for this at the end of words, and using both means whatever is between them is a full word. Only works if you have use wildcards checked though.

The Cougar said...

By the way, <Lee> won't replace lee either, it automatically matches by case.

Thumper said...

Bah, you people are just trying to make my editor's job easier ;)

I did find manage to change Lee to something else using a space after Lee, the with punctuation, and then plurals with a space...but I kinda hope there are a few stray oopsies to hurt her brain. Because she's mean.

Willow said...

Quick fix - use "undo" and then make sure you put the space after "Lee" and it will only change that particular name.

Yes, I learn from my mistakes.

Willow said...

And a good friend would have read responses before commenting with something less than helpful (since you already knew). Gah. Love you anyway.

Anonymous said...

The "match whole word only" option is handy as well! ;)