Mac Forum / Applications / Word / May 2008

Hi John ... Bob,

1. I'm feeling sheepish about forgetting. :-) Anyway, I guess I did.
2. John, I really am trying to avoid rocket science. I have this work to get
done, but once I learn all these tricks, I then use them all the time.  I'm
building up quite a repertoire, but have yet to work out a cost/benefit
ratio.

I'm glad you brought up the "...two spaces is wrong".  I know about that.
That's really what I've been wanting to do. You have to understand that this
MS is going to publishers. So many of them‹and bloggers, etc. not all‹say
this thing about 2 spaces. I really don't agree either, so I'm going to
backtrack, change everything to one space, and if someone doesn't like it
they can lump it.

Another thing somewhat related, is ellipses.  Word squishes three periods
together.  This... or ... or.... The way the type appears in most books I
read is as though there were a space between each dot . . . or. . . .
1. I find the dots with the space more pleasing to the eye.
2. I guess the dots close together (also here in Entourage) is a default,
and I don't know where to change it. It seems that the dots with a space
show more like they're spaced the same as these characters are spaced, and I
think that's why they look better. If there were a way to just press three
or four periods, without having to press the space bar each time between
them, then it would be easy.  An exclamation mark. . . ! And a Question
mark, also have to have a space to look right. Right. . . ?
3. The publishers be damned.
4. I pray you haven't shown me this already.

OK. Now, periods and spaces.

Just now I tried F&R again on a small section of the ms,

Find ". " (period and one space)

Replace with  ".  "  (period and two spaces)

I remember now why I said below:

Because the F&R did fine until it came to an existing (period and two
spaces), at which point Replace created a period and three spaces.

At that point I posted to the newsgroup.

I think I'm beginning to remember your having shown me something like  .%%.

Back to the laboratory, this time to put everything into single space.
After all, I'm only 85 pages into a 400 page book, and it seems I've used
single space all along which doesn't seem right because I'd gotten into the
habit of double spacing.

:-)

This from a guy who *never* uses emoticons.

Best,  Rafael

Hi Rafael:

You keep "forgetting" this one, don't you :-)  We have told you several
times over the past years, and the answer hasn't changed :-)

1)  Search for ".  "  (period and two spaces) and change it to .%%

2)  Search for ". " (period and one space) and change it to .%%

3)  Search for ".%%" and change it to ".  " (period and two spaces).

You can use any character you like in place of %, I use % because it is very
unlikely to occur in my text.

Is this a good time to mention that "two spaces" is wrong?  :-)  That is an
old convention that was introduced in the days of typewriters, to emulate
the behaviour of professional typesetters.  A typesetter uses an "em space"
between sentences.  It's a single fixed-width space.

Modern electronic typesetters will substitute this character whenever they
see "period, spaceband".  So you do not need two spaces any more, unless you
are using a typewriter.

But as you can see, I can't stop myself from doing it, either :-)

Cheers

Hey John -

On 5/11/08 7:12 PM, in article C44DBA7B.14C2C%john@mcghie.name, "John
McGhie" <john@mcghie.name> wrote:

Is this a good time to mention that "two spaces" is wrong?  :-)

If nothing else I'm more accomplished than thee a biting mine tongue;-)

BTW - Why put in the %s? Find (. ) Replace With (.  ) seems to wok just fine
in the more recent vintages. There must be a way to do a global for any end
punctuation (!, ?, .) & replace just the following characters Like I said in
my reply I know how to do the Find but coding the Replace while retaining
the same punctuation character escapes me.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

What "various combinations" have you tried? If you type a period single
space (. ) into the Find field & period 2 spaces (.  ) in the Replace field
that should do it. However, you'll have to repeat substituting  the period
with other end punctuation. If not, click the little jellybean in the lower
left corner of the F&R dialog & check the settings to make sure they aren't
interfering with the process.

I know of a way to to do the Find based on any type of end punctuation using
the \ preceding those used as operators, such as [\!.\?]  , with Wildcards
checked), but I'm far too rusty on the "how to retain it & just Replace the
one character" to venture a guess... And you can probably have it done using
the above method before I'd be able to get it figured out:-)

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

On 5/11/08 5:02 PM, in article C44CAD0D.704D%rmnospam@abc.com, "Rafael
Montserrat" <rmnospam@abc.com> wrote:

On 5/11/08 5:01 PM, in article C44D012F.3AB91%onlygeneraltaz1@com.cast.net,

Hi Bob:

Why the %'s?  Simple:  Much input text is a "mixture" of wrong and right.

If you search for period-one-space and turn it into period-two-spaces, you
will get period-three-spaces wherever the original was correct in the first
place.

To be consistently wrong, you need to search for period and two and flag
them, then search for period and one and expand them.

Or, if you must, search for period-1 and expand them, then period-3 and
contract them :-)

Yes, if you are really good at wild-cards, you can specify a "list".

So "[!.?]  " and replace with "^& " where ^& is "the text returned by the
Find What expression".

But I can never remember that one...

And you are an absolute failure at biting your tongue... I have seen you in
action :-)

Cheers

On 12/05/08 10:01 AM, in article
C44D012F.3AB91%onlygeneraltaz1@com.cast.net, "CyberTaz"
<onlygeneraltaz1@com.cast.net> wrote:

On 5/12/08 12:52 PM, in article
ce491795-7500-4d3c-808c-96606a8d77c1@w7g2000hsa.googlegroups.com, "Fuzzyman"
<fuzzyman@gmail.com> wrote:

Michael,

Thanks.  That's what I've settled on.

Rafael

I insist on your publisher's right to be wrong!!

(Many publishers do this, because it is programmatically very simple to find
with a macro, and substitute the correct "sentence space" character.  Nearly
every publisher either has software that does this automatically, or a macro
to do it.  Not even Proof Editors are sick enough to sit there checking
them, these days ...)  :-)

Cheers

On 13/05/08 5:52 AM, in article
ce491795-7500-4d3c-808c-96606a8d77c1@w7g2000hsa.googlegroups.com, "Fuzzyman"
<fuzzyman@gmail.com> wrote: