Option to clean imported text in Publisher

[Mirza]

Hi all,

Wondering is there an option to clean imported text from word? I mean to remove extra paragraph marks, tabs for indentation, double spaces itd... InDesign have this script FindChangeByList which done same thing and it is huge time saver. What you guys do to clean the imported text?

Thanks.

M.

[Old Bruce]

Hi and welcome to the forums @Mirza

There is no way to save Find and Replace searches. I use Regular Expressions to fix the extra spaces and returns. I prefer to work with plain text files so I do that in BBEdit before placing the file in Publisher.

There is a Recent patterns in the Find and Replace section, it is a poor substitute for actual saved searches though, you have to recognize the patterns in the long list.

[Mirza]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks for the replay. 👍

 

[Cranky Old Huckster]

I may be late to this. I've had this same issue. I hoped they'd had fixed it on version 2 but no dice.

InDesign's "Place…" command allows you select "Show Import Options". It presents a different dialog depending on the kind of file.

For ".txt" files, it shows the options shown in the attached screenshot.

It saves a lot of time and it's missing on APub. I haven't been able to make "Find and Replace" on APub work in a consistent manner with carriage returns, let alone quote marks.

Are there any usable workarounds?

I use BBEdit to clean up the text before placing into APub. I shouldn't have to do that.

I tried using a GREP expression and it was a sad affair (I'm not a GREPista, I've only learned a few expressions by looking online and trial-and error).

If anyone knows of a less cumbersome way of doing this let me know.

BTW, I haven't tried to place a Word doc. Are the styles matchable or importable as on InDesign? 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Cranky Old Huckster
added additional info

[MikeTO]

That's a pretty nice feature. There isn't an equivalent for Affinity at this time but maybe someday when scripting is added we could write that script and share it. I could do this so I'll make a note of it.

In the meantime, BBEdit is a good option if you have it.

MS Word files import with text styles intact.

Cheers

[Cranky Old Huckster]

Thanks.

It's a basic feature that Pagemaker and Quark (at least changing quotes, scripting for multiple returns) supported. I don't know why Affinity didn't include it from the start.