search and replace macro genius?

B

BobW

I wonder if some cyber-macro genius out there has figured out a super macro
that can be used for sweeping multiple cobwebs out of Word documents in one
pass, such as, but not limited to pesky things like:

1. make sure all apostrophes are curly, not straight, in any font.
2. transform all (TM) or TM into superscript TM, in any font
3. transform all (R) to superscript registered symbol, in any font
4. protect onlyl the first instance of every (R) and (TM) on every page of a
..doc
5. abbreviate U.S. (not US) wherever it precedes the word Government or the
name of a government organization (e.g. U.S. Army, etc.)
6. Initial Cap the first word in every bullet
7. Don't Initial Cap every word in a bullet
8. Remove periods from bullets unless they are complete sentences.
9. Use one space between sentences.
10. Change all "web site" into "website"
11. Change all degree symbols from text copied from emails (where they serve
as spaces) into actual spaces; then remove all double spaces.

....and so forth....the purpose being to automate the processing of documents
within a tech pubs work group to make them automatically conform to
departmental usage standards.

I have found one ancieint shareware utility (Search n Replace, by Thomas A
Lundin, downloadable from here: http://www.delphi32.com/vcl/4559/)...but
it's going to take a master's degree in searchnreplaceology to figure out how
to make it do complicated things like I'm proposing. However, I have played
with it a bit, and it can simultaneously process hundreds of search/replace
strings in one document pass, like greased lightning...virtually
instantly...so fast that you at first don't think the program actually RAN!
When you look into the file and realize everything got fixed instantly, it's
astonishing!
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

For a start, just running AutoFormat will do some of what you ask (1-3), but
note that you need to check apostrophes and quotes carefully to make sure
they're not backward, as replacement is not perfect. Also note that
replacing two spaces with one will get the nonbreaking spaces as well as the
regular ones--no need to replace them first.
 

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