(Publisher 2 Desktop) Search & Replace across all book chapters and "learn spelling" behaviour

[Lothyende]

I'm working on a large Publisher project of a series of four books of ~18 chapters each.

One feature that would be extremely helpful to have that I hope I overlooked but fear doesn't exist: the ability to search and replace words across all chapters in a book. For instance, to replace the word "chainsmith" with "chain-smith". 

Does anyone know if this is possible within Publisher? I found that I can do a multiple files text/replace search with BBedit on the .docx files that contain the source text but that would also require me to re-import them. Unfortunately, the .afpub files are in a binary format, making external editing impossible.
 

I also noticed that the spelling checker behaviour is not always consistent. For instance, if I mark a word listed as a spelling mistake with "learn spelling" it gets added to ~/Library/Spelling/en_GB. That's extremely helpful because quite a lot of dialect is spoken in the story.

But it happens quite frequently that when going through the preflight list of spelling mistakes, words marked with "learn spelling" in previous chapters (and are, as I can see, listed in the en_GB file) are still being marked as spelling mistakes - and the odd thing is that the context menu then does not offer "learn spelling" (correctly so) but "unlearn spelling" (which is strange). When I select that, the mistake disappears. This does not remove the word from the ~/Library/Spelling/en_GB file.

But why then does Publisher mark it as a spelling mistake in the first place? It's as if does not take the learned spelling list into account for new chapters.
Is there a way to configure Publisher so that it no longer marks learned spelling?

Thanks!

 

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, Lothyende said:

One feature that would be extremely helpful to have that I hope I overlooked but fear doesn't exist: the ability to search and replace words across all chapters in a book. For instance, to replace the word "chainsmith" with "chain-smith". 

Does anyone know if this is possible within Publisher?

No, the Find & Replace function is for a single file, only, and is not enabled across Books.

9 minutes ago, Lothyende said:

I also noticed that the spelling checker behaviour is not always consistent. For instance, if I mark a word listed as a spelling mistake with "learn spelling" it gets added to ~/Library/Spelling/en_GB. That's extremely helpful because quite a lot of dialect is spoken in the story.

But it happens quite frequently that when going through the preflight list of spelling mistakes, words marked with "learn spelling" in previous chapters (and are, as I can see, listed in the en_GB file) are still being marked as spelling mistakes - and the odd thing is that the context menu then does not offer "learn spelling" (correctly so) but "unlearn spelling" (which is strange).

The only way they should be marked as mistakes, I think, is if you had made changes in one file while another file was (a) Open and (b) already in the middle of a spell-checking operation. So, for example, consider this sequence:

1. You have two chapter files Open, and you have Check Spelling While Typing enabled, and in file 2 you have a page displayed, and some words are underlined.
2. In file 1 you do some work, and Learn some words that file 2 was showing as mis-spelled.
3. You switch to file 2, and the words are still underlined. This is probably correct, as nothing has happened in that file to cause Publisher to look at the spelling again.
4. You then right-click on an underlined word, and you have Unlearn, because Publisher then notices the update from the other file.

Possibly, at step 4, you could switch to a different page and back again, which would cause Publisher to redisplay and recheck the contents.

[Lothyende]

Thank you for your help @walt.farrell !

Too bad about the Find & Replace function but it's good to know and take into account. I'll then go through the spelling in some other way before I import them to Publisher for the next volumes 

Re. the spelling mistakes: I have usually indeed several chapters open. I haven't considered the "spelling as you type" option at all ... that may indeed be the reason for it. I'll try it with only one chapter open and see what happens if I turn that option off. 

 

 

[Lothyende]

Just tried that: only one chapter open, "check spelling while typing" unchecked. This also removes the red squiggly spelling errors in the text display, unless I activate Text -> Spelling -> Check Spelling in the menu. It then jumps to the next spelling error and highlights only that.

Instead, I tried Text -> Spelling -> Spelling Options which offers a choice of how to handle it and then moves to the next one. I just applied "Learn" to one of the character names, saved and closed the chapter and opened the next chapter. And indeed, now that name no longer appears as a spelling mistake. 

I'll experiment a bit more with what exactly the "check spelling while typing" option does. But this definitely resolves the issue. Thanks again!