whole number fractions to proper fractions

[gianluca]

MS Word 2004

As a cookbook editor, I receive countless submissions with the most
common fractions entered as whole numbers. I have quick correct to
convert these if I am typing them myself however I need a way to have
Word make the conversion on a per document basis rather than on a
manual fraction by fraction basis or even using Find/Replace as I do
now. In the old WordPerfect days, running spell check would do this as
well as convert generic quotes to typographer's quotes; Word does
neither.

Google has not been my friend in this search. Appropriate suggestions
from this forum are invited and appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[John McGhie]

In Word, Find/Replace will do this for you.

Typographers quotes are easy: Simply search for " and replace it with " .
In other words, replace a quote with a quote.

In Tools>Autocorrect>Autoformat as you type... Make sure you have "Straight
quotation marks" with "smart quotation marks" switched on, and Word will
pair up your typographers quotes for you when it replaces them.

Fractions are the same: in Tools>Autocorrect>Autoformat as you Type, make
sure you have "Fractions with fraction characters" switched on, then run a
find/replace for each of the fraction groups and replace it with the correct
fraction character.

The difficulty is that unless you are using a modern font with a full
Unicode character set (e.g. Calibri, Cambria) the font you're using may not
actually contain characters for the fractions you want.

If it doesn't, you need to specify a replacement font as well, being a font
you know contains the character you need.

Hope this helps

MS Word 2004

As a cookbook editor, I receive countless submissions with the most
common fractions entered as whole numbers. I have quick correct to
convert these if I am typing them myself however I need a way to have
Word make the conversion on a per document basis rather than on a
manual fraction by fraction basis or even using Find/Replace as I do
now. In the old WordPerfect days, running spell check would do this as
well as convert generic quotes to typographer's quotes; Word does
neither.

Google has not been my friend in this search. Appropriate suggestions
from this forum are invited and appreciated.

Thank you.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 

[CyberTaz]

Further to John's reply, there is no feature in Word, itself, that will
automatically make those conversions on opening a file. One of the primary
reasons is the consideration for dates in short format. It would require a
macro to automate the process for you.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[John McGhie]

Well, if you DO master GREP, you can use GREP to perform substitutions in a
..docx file too.

In a .docx, the "text" is plain Unicode, so you can have our wicked way with
it. You will need to unpack the file first: it's .zip format (and you must
re-pack it later, or Word can't open it...)

Cheers

Thank you, that is what I needed to know. I have all the AutoCorrect
functions in place and working however with the number of submissions
I receive, it is impossible, not to mention inefficient in the extreme
to have to address them with a find/replace. Oy!

Wish I knew how to write that macro. After I master GREP in InDesign,
Apple Scripts is next on the list.

As a related aside: I read all the inquiries - and replies - regarding
formatting fractions as they are typed and all the discussion of
choosing a font that will supply the desired resulting fraction. This
newbie has none of that. I am using Bulmer as the default font and
have created AutoCorrect entries for 1/12, 3/15 and others and they
all look as well set as the standard common fractions that are "ready
made".

Thanks again, Mr. Jones.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

 

[gianluca]

Perhaps the operative word in your reply regarding GREP is "if". In
truth, one rather hoped some generous soul might take pity and compose
the afore suggested macro.

In all seriousness, I am afraid I failed to grasp which file would
need to be unpacked and later rezipped. (You gentlemen are making me
feel so slow, thick and stupid. Hey, I need someone to blame it on.)
Word 2004 has GREP capability? I should have thought I would have to
import the doc into BBEdit or some such app. Enlightenment, please.

PostScript: Before posting this, I Googled "Word2004, GREP" Apparently
my confusion is stemming from the fact that my Word2004 is the Student
version. Before I made the purchase, I called MicroSoft CS and
inquired about any possible differences between the editions. I did
not need the additional apps in the more expensive packages however
functionality, not cost, was my priority. I was assured that within
each app, the functionality was exactly the same. Apparently that is
not correct.

As always, THANKS!

BTW, this forum is a lot more fun than the Windows crew. I like
playing in this pen better.

 

[John McGhie]

Hi GianLuca:

Well... I didn't tell you which file would need to be unpacked because I
was waiting for you to tell us that you have actually performed these
substitutions in GREP in a text file of any description

It can be done, but there's over five grand worth of programming in it,
whether you do it in GREP, VBA, or AppleScript! Sorry, but it's not the
kind of thing anyone is going to give away for nothing.

If you save a Word file in the .docx format, it is actually saved in Zip
format as a little website. If you unzip it, you will find a folder named
"Word" containing a file named "Document.xml". That's the text.

However, converting various sequences of characters into fraction characters
is actually quite complex programming ‹ well beyond what any of us are going
to do for you without charge.

Within limits, you can make a crude macro that would do most of this for
you, using a series of Find/Replace operations. You could record nearly all
of the logic using the built-in Macro Recorder. That much is reasonably
simple and would run relatively quickly.

To go on from there to develop an application you could offer commercially
without sending yourself broke with support calls, is a non-trivial
exercise! At least part of the excitement comes from trying to work out
which font to use for each substitution, and from there, which fraction
characters are available in that font, and if the one you want is not,
whether to perform that substitution or leave that fraction unchanged.

In Office 2004, the functionality is EXACTLY the same between the various
versions: the applications are exactly the same binaries. The only
difference is in the conditions imposed by the licence. Home and Student
had three licence keys allowing three concurrent users, but only in a home
or educational setting. Standard had a single licence, use anywhere.
Professional had a single licence but included a copy of Virtual PC 7 for
Power PC and a copy of Windows XP for Virtual PC.

Cheers

Perhaps the operative word in your reply regarding GREP is "if". In
truth, one rather hoped some generous soul might take pity and compose
the afore suggested macro.

In all seriousness, I am afraid I failed to grasp which file would
need to be unpacked and later rezipped. (You gentlemen are making me
feel so slow, thick and stupid. Hey, I need someone to blame it on.)
Word 2004 has GREP capability? I should have thought I would have to
import the doc into BBEdit or some such app. Enlightenment, please.

PostScript: Before posting this, I Googled "Word2004, GREP" Apparently
my confusion is stemming from the fact that my Word2004 is the Student
version. Before I made the purchase, I called MicroSoft CS and
inquired about any possible differences between the editions. I did
not need the additional apps in the more expensive packages however
functionality, not cost, was my priority. I was assured that within
each app, the functionality was exactly the same. Apparently that is
not correct.

As always, THANKS!

BTW, this forum is a lot more fun than the Windows crew. I like
playing in this pen better.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!