Contribution To NewsGroup

[Montserrat]

Hi All,

I've gained so much from this NG that I want to give something back that
I've discovered which may be of use to others. My discovery started when I
learned that the specifications that agents want to see in my MS include two
spaces between each sentence, which I hadn't done. The manuscript has some
100,000 words, and I didn't realize how much time and decisions were
involved in going through spell and grammar check. I had chosen "Two spaces
between each sentence" from <preferences-spelling and grammar settings> and
along with all the 'standard' settings I chose, two spaces between sentences
came up a lot. I thought about this and how it's necessary, and time
consuming, to watch for each setting as it comes up during grammar check.
What to do? I went back into "settings" and and unchecked all items in
'Standard'. leaving only the selection 'space required between sentences-2'
Going back to my document and running grammar check, 'space between
sentences' became the only correction that came up as I ran through the
document. I clicked each time. Then I started clicking as fast as I could,
like a wild telegrapher, and the corrections went as fast as they could go.
Then I tried this: I clicked ahead twenty, then stopped. The benefit of
this method is it is a no brainer since I don't have to stop and look and
make a decision at each category the grammar checker had me look at. When I
finished 2 spaces, I used the method with each of the other setting, again
to my benefit, though I paid a little more attention, because unlike 2
spaces, there were some decisions to be made.

A second item regarding custom dictionaries and spelling check. There are
French and Spanish words in my book. I had the English dictionary on all
the time and kept 'adding' foreign words I wanted into that dictionary.
Thinking that that may result in confusion later, I switched to Spanish
dictionary for spell check, and then French dictionary for that spell check.
Thinking about that now, I realize that I have to add to English dictionary
when I'm running through the whole document in English, because switching to
the other dictionaries while spell checking would be too time consuming.
Still, switching dictionaries after running the English dictionary, picks up
the foreign words and corrects them.

Hope these is of benefit to someone. I'm now accustoming myself to typing
two spaces between sentences as I go along.

Rafael

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Rafael:

That's a wonderful work-around: I love it Many thanks for that. In
fact, I love it so much I have changed the Subject so other people can find
it in Google for years to come

There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing it with
Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun

1) In the Find/Replace, search for period, space, space and replace it
with something that won't appear in the document. I usually use .$$

2) Now search for period, space and change that to the same string, e.g.
..$$

3) Now search for all of the placeholder strings (e.g. .$$) and replace
them with period, space space.

This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end". But it's fast...

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Cheers

Hi All,

I've gained so much from this NG that I want to give something back that
I've discovered which may be of use to others. My discovery started when I
learned that the specifications that agents want to see in my MS include two
spaces between each sentence, which I hadn't done. The manuscript has some
100,000 words, and I didn't realize how much time and decisions were
involved in going through spell and grammar check. I had chosen "Two spaces
between each sentence" from <preferences-spelling and grammar settings> and
along with all the 'standard' settings I chose, two spaces between sentences
came up a lot. I thought about this and how it's necessary, and time
consuming, to watch for each setting as it comes up during grammar check.
What to do? I went back into "settings" and and unchecked all items in
'Standard'. leaving only the selection 'space required between sentences-2'
Going back to my document and running grammar check, 'space between
sentences' became the only correction that came up as I ran through the
document. I clicked each time. Then I started clicking as fast as I could,
like a wild telegrapher, and the corrections went as fast as they could go.
Then I tried this: I clicked ahead twenty, then stopped. The benefit of
this method is it is a no brainer since I don't have to stop and look and
make a decision at each category the grammar checker had me look at. When I
finished 2 spaces, I used the method with each of the other setting, again
to my benefit, though I paid a little more attention, because unlike 2
spaces, there were some decisions to be made.

A second item regarding custom dictionaries and spelling check. There are
French and Spanish words in my book. I had the English dictionary on all
the time and kept 'adding' foreign words I wanted into that dictionary.
Thinking that that may result in confusion later, I switched to Spanish
dictionary for spell check, and then French dictionary for that spell check.
Thinking about that now, I realize that I have to add to English dictionary
when I'm running through the whole document in English, because switching to
the other dictionaries while spell checking would be too time consuming.
Still, switching dictionaries after running the English dictionary, picks up
the foreign words and corrects them.

Hope these is of benefit to someone. I'm now accustoming myself to typing
two spaces between sentences as I go along.

Rafael

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Montserrat]

Hi John,

Thanks.

I ran your find/replace and it worked wonderfully and didn¹t seem to effect
my elipses, which I already have set to two spaces between each period,
rather than the close together elipses that word gives as default.

You say: ³There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing
it with Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun ²

Boring? Hardly. Your find/replace did a whole document in seconds. Fun?
My way, while a shortcut, still takes a while. Besides, I really don't want
to become a telegrapher and run the risk of carpal thumb syndrome.

-----

One detail I forgot to mention in regard to my sentence spacing method is
this:

At the point in my post: "Then I started clicking as fast..."

.... While the corrections went as fast as they could, it didn't matter how
fast and how many clicks I got ahead of the corrections ‹ 20, 40 ‹ only ten
corrections were made and then the correcting stopped.

--------

The part I don't understand in your reply is the mechanics of what you
present in your last two paragraphs, and how the items of "smart logic" of
spell/grammar check effect the speed and practical results I want to
achieve. Will find/replace produce errors that make me have to go back over
the document to find and correct?

Here's what you said, and the things I specifically don't understand I have
put inside single quotation marks.

"This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the 'presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end"'. But it's fast..."
'Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end
paragraph and replace with period, end paragraph.'"

I don't understand how "end paragraph" relates to sentence spacing.

Best, Rafael

From: "John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Tue, 05 Jul 2005 21:51:16 +1000
Subject: Sentence Spacing in Word

Hi Rafael:

That's a wonderful work-around: I love it Many thanks for that. In
fact, I love it so much I have changed the Subject so other people can find
it in Google for years to come

There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing it with
Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun

1) In the Find/Replace, search for period, space, space and replace it
with something that won't appear in the document. I usually use .$$

2) Now search for period, space and change that to the same string, e.g.
.$$

3) Now search for all of the placeholder strings (e.g. .$$) and replace
them with period, space space.

This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end". But it's fast...

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Cheers

Hi All,

I've gained so much from this NG that I want to give something back that
I've discovered which may be of use to others. My discovery started when I
learned that the specifications that agents want to see in my MS include two
spaces between each sentence, which I hadn't done. The manuscript has some
100,000 words, and I didn't realize how much time and decisions were
involved in going through spell and grammar check. I had chosen "Two spaces
between each sentence" from <preferences-spelling and grammar settings> and
along with all the 'standard' settings I chose, two spaces between sentences
came up a lot. I thought about this and how it's necessary, and time
consuming, to watch for each setting as it comes up during grammar check.
What to do? I went back into "settings" and and unchecked all items in
'Standard'. leaving only the selection 'space required between sentences-2'
Going back to my document and running grammar check, 'space between
sentences' became the only correction that came up as I ran through the
document. I clicked each time. Then I started clicking as fast as I could,
like a wild telegrapher, and the corrections went as fast as they could go.
Then I tried this: I clicked ahead twenty, then stopped. The benefit of
this method is it is a no brainer since I don't have to stop and look and
make a decision at each category the grammar checker had me look at. When I
finished 2 spaces, I used the method with each of the other setting, again
to my benefit, though I paid a little more attention, because unlike 2
spaces, there were some decisions to be made.

A second item regarding custom dictionaries and spelling check. There are
French and Spanish words in my book. I had the English dictionary on all
the time and kept 'adding' foreign words I wanted into that dictionary.
Thinking that that may result in confusion later, I switched to Spanish
dictionary for spell check, and then French dictionary for that spell check.
Thinking about that now, I realize that I have to add to English dictionary
when I'm running through the whole document in English, because switching to
the other dictionaries while spell checking would be too time consuming.
Still, switching dictionaries after running the English dictionary, picks up
the foreign words and corrects them.

Hope these is of benefit to someone. I'm now accustoming myself to typing
two spaces between sentences as I go along.

Rafael

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Nah, the first search was for "\.\s". You won't find "\.\r" with it so
no need to look for "\.\s\s\r" once you're done and replace with "\.\r"
unless you already had some "\.\s\r"

\s space
\r carriage return at the end of the paragraph
\. period (to make sure I'm not talking abuot the wildcard here ;-) ),

Corentin

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

'Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end

paragraph and replace with period, end paragraph.'"

I don't understand how "end paragraph" relates to sentence spacing.

It's paragraph mark, really gray ¶, rather than end paragraph. Because if
you are a typist on auto-pilot (as I usually am), you would type the period
to end the sentence and then type two spaces before you realized you wanted
a new paragraph and hit enter to get the ¶. This doesn't affect the printing
or the look, but it does mean there are spaces in the wrong place, which
ought not to be there.

But as Corentin said, you don't need a separate search for it.

Daiya

PS. For those of you that know Suzanne Barnhill--she was editing an article
for me and deleted every single one of those extra spaces at the end of a
paragraph. I had a lot of them.

 

[Elliott Roper]

PS. For those of you that know Suzanne Barnhill--she was editing an article
for me and deleted every single one of those extra spaces at the end of a
paragraph. I had a lot of them.

Enroll me in the Suzanne Barnhill fan club.
If she also got rid of double spaces at sentence ends, make me a life
member.

Find: ^w^p
Replace: ^p
sorted!

<tone=curmudgeon>
Two spaces after a period is an affectation from the far off days of
monospaced mechanical typewriters when the world was new and all.
Any halfway decent word processor should have a preference for an
automatic added thin space at sentence end.

In any case, importing Word text into an application that actually gets
typography right should be able to deal with it.
</tone>

 

[Montserrat]

Hi John,

I'm glad you like it, but I have a question. Your Find/Replace, which
I've been using since you posted it, is so far superior to what I've been
doing, that I'm curious as to why you like mine so much that you would want
"... people [to] find it in Google for years to come". Also, I find
Find/Replace to be much LESS boring by far than what I was doing. The 'fun'
part is being able to go on to the next task right away.
Doing it Find/Replace I get about 5% misses that show up when I do the
spell/grammar check. I also like to do spell alone after doing the two
spaces, concentrate on just spelling, and then go on to grammar.

Best, Rafael




Hi Rafael:

That's a wonderful work-around: I love it Many thanks for that. In
fact, I love it so much I have changed the Subject so other people can find
it in Google for years to come

There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing it with
Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun

1) In the Find/Replace, search for period, space, space and replace it
with something that won't appear in the document. I usually use .$$

2) Now search for period, space and change that to the same string, e.g.
..$$

3) Now search for all of the placeholder strings (e.g. .$$) and replace
them with period, space space.

This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end". But it's fast...

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Cheers

Hi All,

I've gained so much from this NG that I want to give something back that
I've discovered which may be of use to others. My discovery started when I
learned that the specifications that agents want to see in my MS include two
spaces between each sentence, which I hadn't done. The manuscript has some
100,000 words, and I didn't realize how much time and decisions were
involved in going through spell and grammar check. I had chosen "Two spaces
between each sentence" from <preferences-spelling and grammar settings> and
along with all the 'standard' settings I chose, two spaces between sentences
came up a lot. I thought about this and how it's necessary, and time
consuming, to watch for each setting as it comes up during grammar check.
What to do? I went back into "settings" and and unchecked all items in
'Standard'. leaving only the selection 'space required between sentences-2'
Going back to my document and running grammar check, 'space between
sentences' became the only correction that came up as I ran through the
document. I clicked each time. Then I started clicking as fast as I could,
like a wild telegrapher, and the corrections went as fast as they could go.
Then I tried this: I clicked ahead twenty, then stopped. The benefit of
this method is it is a no brainer since I don't have to stop and look and
make a decision at each category the grammar checker had me look at. When I
finished 2 spaces, I used the method with each of the other setting, again
to my benefit, though I paid a little more attention, because unlike 2
spaces, there were some decisions to be made.

A second item regarding custom dictionaries and spelling check. There are
French and Spanish words in my book. I had the English dictionary on all
the time and kept 'adding' foreign words I wanted into that dictionary.
Thinking that that may result in confusion later, I switched to Spanish
dictionary for spell check, and then French dictionary for that spell check.
Thinking about that now, I realize that I have to add to English dictionary
when I'm running through the whole document in English, because switching to
the other dictionaries while spell checking would be too time consuming.
Still, switching dictionaries after running the English dictionary, picks up
the foreign words and corrects them.

Hope these is of benefit to someone. I'm now accustoming myself to typing
two spaces between sentences as I go along.

Rafael

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

 

[Russs]

Hi John,

I'm glad you like it, but I have a question. Your Find/Replace, which
I've been using since you posted it, is so far superior to what I've been
doing, that I'm curious as to why you like mine so much that you would want
"... people [to] find it in Google for years to come". Also, I find
Find/Replace to be much LESS boring by far than what I was doing. The 'fun'
part is being able to go on to the next task right away.
Doing it Find/Replace I get about 5% misses that show up when I do the
spell/grammar check. I also like to do spell alone after doing the two
spaces, concentrate on just spelling, and then go on to grammar.

Best, Rafael




Hi Rafael:

That's a wonderful work-around: I love it Many thanks for that. In
fact, I love it so much I have changed the Subject so other people can find
it in Google for years to come

There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing it with
Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun

1) In the Find/Replace, search for period, space, space and replace it
with something that won't appear in the document. I usually use .$$

2) Now search for period, space and change that to the same string, e.g.
.$$


3) Now search for all of the placeholder strings (e.g. .$$) and replace
them with period, space space.

This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end". But it's fast...

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Cheers


On 5/7/05 2:44 AM, in article BEEEB593.7494%[email protected],

I think the method below can be more efficient than using place holding
characters during multiple passes. Wildcards are more powerful, but not yet
as powerful as regular expressions used in the UNIX world; but wildcards are
the best, next thing.
I added the second search section to show how blank lines could be found.


Sub Document_Cleanup()
'
' Double-space sentences and remove blank lines
'
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory ' go to beginning of document.
'Find and Replace #1
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = ". {1,}" 'Find period followed by one or more spaces.
.Replacement.Text = ". " 'Replace with period and two spaces.
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = True
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
'Find and Replace #2 (We don't have re-issue any indented line above
that doesn't change.)
With Selection.Find
.Text = "\n{2,}" 'Find two or more returns or paragraph markers in a
row.
.Replacement.Text = "^p" ' Replace with a single paragraph marker.
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

 

[Montserrat]

Hi John,

Maybe I missed a post, but I don't think so, and I remain curious to read an
answer from you about the question I asked below.

Best, Rafael



Hi John,

I'm glad you like it, but I have a question. Your Find/Replace, which
I've been using since you posted it, is so far superior to what I've been
doing, that I'm curious as to why you like mine so much that you would want
"... people [to] find it in Google for years to come". Also, I find
Find/Replace to be much LESS boring by far than what I was doing. The 'fun'
part is being able to go on to the next task right away.
Doing it Find/Replace I get about 5% misses that show up when I do the
spell/grammar check. I also like to do spell alone after doing the two
spaces, concentrate on just spelling, and then go on to grammar.

Best, Rafael




Hi Rafael:

That's a wonderful work-around: I love it Many thanks for that. In
fact, I love it so much I have changed the Subject so other people can find
it in Google for years to come

There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing it with
Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun

1) In the Find/Replace, search for period, space, space and replace it
with something that won't appear in the document. I usually use .$$

2) Now search for period, space and change that to the same string, e.g.
..$$

3) Now search for all of the placeholder strings (e.g. .$$) and replace
them with period, space space.

This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end". But it's fast...

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Cheers

Hi All,

I've gained so much from this NG that I want to give something back that
I've discovered which may be of use to others. My discovery started when I
learned that the specifications that agents want to see in my MS include two
spaces between each sentence, which I hadn't done. The manuscript has some
100,000 words, and I didn't realize how much time and decisions were
involved in going through spell and grammar check. I had chosen "Two spaces
between each sentence" from <preferences-spelling and grammar settings> and
along with all the 'standard' settings I chose, two spaces between sentences
came up a lot. I thought about this and how it's necessary, and time
consuming, to watch for each setting as it comes up during grammar check.
What to do? I went back into "settings" and and unchecked all items in
'Standard'. leaving only the selection 'space required between sentences-2'
Going back to my document and running grammar check, 'space between
sentences' became the only correction that came up as I ran through the
document. I clicked each time. Then I started clicking as fast as I could,
like a wild telegrapher, and the corrections went as fast as they could go.
Then I tried this: I clicked ahead twenty, then stopped. The benefit of
this method is it is a no brainer since I don't have to stop and look and
make a decision at each category the grammar checker had me look at. When I
finished 2 spaces, I used the method with each of the other setting, again
to my benefit, though I paid a little more attention, because unlike 2
spaces, there were some decisions to be made.

A second item regarding custom dictionaries and spelling check. There are
French and Spanish words in my book. I had the English dictionary on all
the time and kept 'adding' foreign words I wanted into that dictionary.
Thinking that that may result in confusion later, I switched to Spanish
dictionary for spell check, and then French dictionary for that spell check.
Thinking about that now, I realize that I have to add to English dictionary
when I'm running through the whole document in English, because switching to
the other dictionaries while spell checking would be too time consuming.
Still, switching dictionaries after running the English dictionary, picks up
the foreign words and corrects them.

Hope these is of benefit to someone. I'm now accustoming myself to typing
two spaces between sentences as I go along.

Rafael

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410

From: Montserrat <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.mac.office.word
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 10:40:50 -0700
Subject: Re: Sentence Spacing in Word

Hi John,

I'm glad you like it, but I have a question. Your Find/Replace, which
I've been using since you posted it, is so far superior to what I've been
doing, that I'm curious as to why you like mine so much that you would want
"... people [to] find it in Google for years to come". Also, I find
Find/Replace to be much LESS boring by far than what I was doing. The 'fun'
part is being able to go on to the next task right away.
Doing it Find/Replace I get about 5% misses that show up when I do the
spell/grammar check. I also like to do spell alone after doing the two
spaces, concentrate on just spelling, and then go on to grammar.

Best, Rafael




Hi Rafael:

That's a wonderful work-around: I love it Many thanks for that. In
fact, I love it so much I have changed the Subject so other people can find
it in Google for years to come

There is, of course, a quicker and much more boring way of doing it with
Find/Replace, but it's nowhere near as much fun

1) In the Find/Replace, search for period, space, space and replace it
with something that won't appear in the document. I usually use .$$

2) Now search for period, space and change that to the same string, e.g.
.$$

3) Now search for all of the placeholder strings (e.g. .$$) and replace
them with period, space space.

This method is not quite as accurate as using the grammar checker: the
grammar checker has some smart logic to allow for the presence of tracked
changes, deleted text, expanded fields etc and some variations that can
occur on the theme of "sentence end". But it's fast...

Perfectionists would then search for period, space, space, end paragraph and
replace with period, end paragraph.

Cheers

Hi All,

I've gained so much from this NG that I want to give something back that
I've discovered which may be of use to others. My discovery started when I
learned that the specifications that agents want to see in my MS include two
spaces between each sentence, which I hadn't done. The manuscript has some
100,000 words, and I didn't realize how much time and decisions were
involved in going through spell and grammar check. I had chosen "Two spaces
between each sentence" from <preferences-spelling and grammar settings> and
along with all the 'standard' settings I chose, two spaces between sentences
came up a lot. I thought about this and how it's necessary, and time
consuming, to watch for each setting as it comes up during grammar check.
What to do? I went back into "settings" and and unchecked all items in
'Standard'. leaving only the selection 'space required between sentences-2'
Going back to my document and running grammar check, 'space between
sentences' became the only correction that came up as I ran through the
document. I clicked each time. Then I started clicking as fast as I could,
like a wild telegrapher, and the corrections went as fast as they could go.
Then I tried this: I clicked ahead twenty, then stopped. The benefit of
this method is it is a no brainer since I don't have to stop and look and
make a decision at each category the grammar checker had me look at. When I
finished 2 spaces, I used the method with each of the other setting, again
to my benefit, though I paid a little more attention, because unlike 2
spaces, there were some decisions to be made.

A second item regarding custom dictionaries and spelling check. There are
French and Spanish words in my book. I had the English dictionary on all
the time and kept 'adding' foreign words I wanted into that dictionary.
Thinking that that may result in confusion later, I switched to Spanish
dictionary for spell check, and then French dictionary for that spell check.
Thinking about that now, I realize that I have to add to English dictionary
when I'm running through the whole document in English, because switching to
the other dictionaries while spell checking would be too time consuming.
Still, switching dictionaries after running the English dictionary, picks up
the foreign words and corrects them.

Hope these is of benefit to someone. I'm now accustoming myself to typing
two spaces between sentences as I go along.

Rafael

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410