Publisher - Find and Replace

[PaulEC]

I've got a feeling I've seen this somewhere (I might even have asked the question before myself and forgotten the answer!), but is it possible to automatically search a document for "_any words_"  and replace it with "any words". In other words, remove the underscores and italicize the word(s) between them.

Many thanks for any help.

[MikeTO]

Yes, just paste "_any words_" into Find, type "any words", and from the gear menu for Replace, choose Format > Italic. It should look like this.

[PaulEC]

Thanks for your reply, but, sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I need to search for any words that are between a pair of underscores, make those words italic and remove the underscores on each side. I think it can be done with Regular Expressions, but I have no idea how! 

[walt.farrell]

Not sure what you mean by automatically. It's certainly possible to manually search for strings like that, remove the underscores, change to an italic style using Find and Replace with regular expression processing. Barring bugs getting in the way, of course

Search: _(.+?)_ 

Make sure the regular expression option is enabled.

Replace: \1

Choose format italic from the gear menu for Replace.

Edit: This will find any characters between the underscores. If you really mean any words it would be different.

[Old Bruce]

@PaulEC,

Walt's search term has the ? (question mark) in it to select from 

     Here is an _underscored_ bit of _text_ which could cause problems.

with the ? you will find the two words separately. Without the ? you will find from _u... all the way to ...xt_

With the ? you'll get:

     Here is an underscored bit of text which could cause problems.

Without the ? you'll get:

     Here is an underscored bit of text which could cause problems.

[PaulEC]

Thanks for your help. Basically what I need to do is find all the instances of text which have an underscore at each end and change the formatting of that text to italic. I hoped there might be a way to do it automatically, but if not I’ll just have to do it one at a time (there are several hundred instances in the text I’m working on!) At least I can now search for them, rather than reading through the whole thing and hope I don’t miss any! Thanks again for your help.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I hoped there might be a way to do it automatically, but if not I’ll just have to do it one at a time (there are several hundred instances in the text I’m working on!)

The regular expression approach I described should find them all, and Replace All should change them all. Barring, as I said, the possibility of bugs.

Where are you having a problem?

[Hangman]

Hi @PaulEC, does @walt.farrell's solution not resolve your quest?

Based on your description it does for me but equally I may have not completely understood your issue and I'm equally unsure what you mean by 'automatically' over and above Find and Replace?

[PaulEC]

I haven’t had the chance to try yet, and I may well have misunderstood. I assumed that what Walt said would find the instances, but that I would still have to change the formatting myself. I’m afraid that I’ve never been able to get the hang of Relative Expressions! Anyway, I’ll have a go tomorrow, on my PC, (I’m typing this on my iPad,) and see how I get on. 😀

[Hangman]

10 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

I’m afraid that I’ve never been able to get the hang of Relative Expressions! Anyway, I’ll have a go tomorrow, on my PC, (I’m typing this on my iPad,) and see how I get on. 😀

Walt's 'solution' worked like a treat for me so I think it may for you too...

[David in Яuislip]

22 minutes ago, Hangman said:

Walt's 'solution' worked like a treat for me

Worked for me too, I am a bit of a beginner with regex and there are a few different versions but this was perfect in Publisher

[PaulEC]

Hi @walt.farrell 

I just wanted to thank you for your excellent advice. It worked like a charm – exactly what I needed! (and saved me several hours work!) 👍 🙂

[thomaso]

20 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Search: _(.+?)_ 

Make sure the regular expression option is enabled.

Replace: \1

Just curious: Is it possible to replace the _ into " while applying italics to the entire result + still affect any _instance_ regardless of its text in between?

_any word_    ->   "any word"

[Seneca]

10 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Is it possible to replace the _ into " while applying italics to the entire result + still affect any _instance_ regardless of its text in between?

Yes it is.

Just change Walt's Replace: \1

with

Replace: "\1"

[Old Bruce]

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

Just curious: Is it possible to replace the _ into " while applying italics to the entire result + still affect any _instance_ regardless of its text in between?

 

The " will become italic.

[walt.farrell]

2 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

The " will become italic.

Good point, Bruce. I think it would take a multi-step approach to do it with non-italic quote marks.

First, retain the _ characters (or better, change to a double _, __) and make the entire string italic:

Next, find the italic double underscores and change them to non-italic double quote marks: