find and replace symbols

[Tewodaj]

Hi,
I am using Word 2002 on Windows XP. I have been trying, so far
unsuccessfully, to use the "Find and Replace" tool to replace greek symbols
with other greek symbols in my text (e.g. alpha, etc.). I have managed to
find symbols by copying and pasting the symbol into the Find What box. But
when I try to replace something, say the word "discount factor" with the
symbol for 'beta' by pasting the symbol into the Replace box, "discount
factor" instead gets replaced with a little square box. How can I address
this problem? Is it at all adressable in Word 2002? A little warning: I've
never written word or excel macros so am not familiar with doing my own
programming in such applications, so I would much prefer a menu driven
solution.

 

[TF]

The Greek Symbols you are replacing are in a different symbol font: so the
replace text is actually using characters that don't have anything assigned
in the Symbol Font: hence the little square box. What you need to do is
click on the MORE button in the F&R dialog and from the Format list, assign
the correct font to the replace text.



: Hi,
: I am using Word 2002 on Windows XP. I have been trying, so far
: unsuccessfully, to use the "Find and Replace" tool to replace greek
symbols
: with other greek symbols in my text (e.g. alpha, etc.). I have managed to
: find symbols by copying and pasting the symbol into the Find What box. But
: when I try to replace something, say the word "discount factor" with the
: symbol for 'beta' by pasting the symbol into the Replace box, "discount
: factor" instead gets replaced with a little square box. How can I address
: this problem? Is it at all adressable in Word 2002? A little warning: I've
: never written word or excel macros so am not familiar with doing my own
: programming in such applications, so I would much prefer a menu driven
: solution.

 

[Tewodaj]

Terry,

I tried out your suggestion and it works. But I would rather not have the
new character in "symbol" font. Let me explain: When I use a greek symbol, I
obtain it through Insert - Symbol. When I do that, the inserted symbol
'alpha' has the same font as the rest of the text, in my case Times New
Roman. That is, when you highlight it, then go to Format - Font, you see that
it's Time New Roman. I want to keep it that way, i.e. when I replace the word
"discount" with the sign 'beta', I don't want the 'beta' to be in Symbol
font. Why do I care about that as long as the appearance is right? Because my
document has some titles, emphases, etc. in Arial. So when I highlight a text
and change that to Times New Roman or Arial, I want the 'alpha' withn the
highlighted text to remain an 'alpha'. Which I can do when I directly insert
it through Insert - Symbol, but not when I bring it in through F&R using your
method. Is there a way to retain the "Times New Roman" font of the greek
symbols in doing F&R??

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This works for me in Word 2003. If I paste the beta from "(normal text)"
(glyph 03B2) into the "Replace with" box it actually displays as beta, but
even if it displayed as a square, I would still expect it to replace
correctly (symbols are often not displayed correctly in the dialog itself).
But see http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/FindReplaceSymbols.htm

 

[Tewodaj]

Suzanne,

The problem is *not* that it doesn't display correctly in the dialogue box.
The problem is that I get the little square in the text itself. Here are the
steps I took and the outcome I got:

1. Do Insert-Symbol to get the symbol beta into the text of the document.
2. Highlight that beta now in the text and copy via Ctrl+C
3. Open the Find and Replace box, go to "Replace with", do Ctrl+V. It shows
up in the dialogue box as another weird symbol, (but that's not the problem)
4. Type the word 'discount' in the Find What box. Click on Replace All
5. It replaces all instances of 'discount' with the little square, instead
of with beta.

I have been to the link that you pointed me to,
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MacrosVBA/FindReplaceSymbols.htm
but this link seems to suggest as solution to write a macro to solve the
problem. I am utterly unfamiliar with writing macros and was hoping to find
another solution in Word 2002.

Thanks for any help on this.
Tewodaj

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I don't know whether I'm just lucky or this is something that's been
improved in Word 2003; all I can say is that it works for me as described in
that version. What you might try instead is to copy the beta as before, then
use ^c (Clipboard contents) in the "Replace with" box.

 

[Tewodaj]

Suzanne,

Your last idea using ^c finally worked for me!! It replaces discount with
'beta' without making 'beta' a symbol font that would change the character
when I highlight it and choose, say, Arial. Thanks a million, this was very
helpful!

Tewodaj

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

I'm glad you had success, but just to correct one misconception: when you
insert a character from a "symbol" font (Symbol, Wingdings, etc.), it is
inserted as a field (Word used to make this more obvious, as you could
actually toggle the field display and see the field code; you can still
explicitly insert a symbol field using Insert | Field) and thus protected
from font updating. Try it: insert the beta from the Symbol font using
Insert | Symbol (*not* by typing from the keyboard and then applying Symbol
from the font box). You will notice that the font displayed does not change;
if you continue to type, you'll still be typing in, say, TNR. And if you
select all the text and change it to Arial, the beta does not change.

I'm not sure how this would work with Finding/Replacing, however.

 

[Klaus Linke]

I'm not sure how this would work with Finding/Replacing, however.

It doesn't, I'm afraid. Though you can "protect" the symbols with a macro after you have inserted them with "Find/Replace":
http://www.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=4

Greetings,
Klaus