Section text not included in Find and Replace

[thetasig]

AFPUB 1.10.4, Mac Catalina.

Noted that Section text is not included in the Find [and Replace] feature.

[walt.farrell]

If you mean the section name that you can put into a text frame by using Text > Insert > Fields > Section Name, that's not editable text, and therefore not usable in Find/Replace. You can turn on the option Text > Highlight Fields to make it more obvious that it is a Field, not text.

It might be useful to have a way to Find a Field, by name, and possibly also useful to be able to Replace it by standard text. It can't remain a Field after a Replace operation, though. But I think that would be a new function, and more appropriate as a Feature Request.

 

[MikeTO]

I wouldn't expect for field text to be found during a find and replace, that's not the way most programs work. Find has to highlight the found text in your document so you can decide whether or not to change it.

[thetasig]

You're close. It is the "Section Manager", "Section Name" that is not being checked. It's not a field.

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, thetasig said:

You're close. It is the "Section Manager", "Section Name" that is not being checked. It's not a field.

But the Section Name in the Section Manager isn't relevant, as far as I know, until you insert it as a Field into a text object. Until then, it exists only in the Section Manager.

And Find and Replace only operates on the text objects.

[thetasig]

Well, OK then. So instead of a bug, this is a feature request to allow Find and Replace to find anything outside of "text objects" that a user can "fill in" with text. In my opinion, Section Management and the names of each Section are very relevant to creating a document and maintaining it and being able to search and find and replace as needed. In just one of my documents, I have about 31+ different sections and they need to be kept in sync with other text objects in the document that might have to be changed. Find and Replace is the only tool available at the moment to do this. Hoping that management will consider this feature request.

[Old Bruce]

Do you use a Paragraph Style named, oh say; Section Style and search for that?

[walt.farrell]

1 minute ago, Old Bruce said:

Do you use a Paragraph Style named, oh say; Section Style and search for that?

That would let you find where you've got that style used, unless (perhaps) you used it on a Master Page.

But I think what thetasig wants is the ability to find/replace occurrences of, say, ABC to DEF, and have it cover cases where a section name has ABC in it. It wouldn't matter what style was assigned to the text that included the Section Name field, as it couldn't be changed on the page. It would have to be changed in the Section Manager. So, finding the style might let you find all the places where section names occur, it wouldn't let you isolate the Find to those places where the section name contained ABC. And wouldn't let you change them to DEF during the Replace operation.

[Old Bruce]

20 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

That would let you find where you've got that style used, unless (perhaps) you used it on a Master Page.

But I think what thetasig wants is the ability to find/replace occurrences of, say, ABC to DEF, and have it cover cases where a section name has ABC in it. It wouldn't matter what style was assigned to the text that included the Section Name field, as it couldn't be changed on the page. It would have to be changed in the Section Manager. So, finding the style might let you find all the places where section names occur, it wouldn't let you isolate the Find to those places where the section name contained ABC. And wouldn't let you change them to DEF during the Replace operation.

Until we can use find and replace with fields this will help. It is not a replacement for finding particular, oh say the Page number field that is filled with 32, like 32, 132, 232, 321, 322,323...

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Until we can use find and replace with fields this will help.

It might help, if it worked. I'm not convinced it does. At least in 1.10.5.1282 beta it only finds 1 occurrence for me, when the page text is inherited from a Master Page.

[Old Bruce]

9 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

if it worked. I'm not convinced it does.

You are right, doesn't work. Now I am trying to remember what I used before, or if in fact I did use something before.

[thetasig]

@walt.farrell is correct. My specific situation is that my Section Headings (Section Management, Section Name) is different on almost every page. Add that to the situation where I am also using the same words (country and city names, for example) in a "travelogue" in normal text frames. For example: Section Name heading: "UK, Stonehenge" and on the relevant page a text frame discussing "...Stonehenge..." and how I visited the structure.

The case that brought this up is that I misspelled "Marseilles" with the ending "s" on a Section Name (field controlled by Section Management, Section Name) and I could not find where it was using Find and Replace ("nothing found"). So, I had to manually go page by page to find the relevant "section" heading and then go into the Section Management and edit the field value there. It then occurred to me that the Find and Replace might be augmented to include text that users have to enter manually regardless of where that might occur.

It seems reasonable to ask/suggest that anything that can be printed/displayed on a document "page" (text) be included in Find, at least; and maybe Replacement too. For example, change all occurrences of "Marseilles" to "Marseille"