OpenOffice.org OpenOffice - 3.3 User Manual download pdf (Page 67)

Find and replace specific formatting

A very powerful use of Find & Replace takes advantage of the format option. For

example, you might want to replace underlined words with italics.

On the Find & Replace dialog box (with More Options displayed, as in Figure 65):

1) To search for text with specific formatting, enter the text in the Search for box.

To search for specific formatting only, delete any text in the Search for box.

2) Click Format to display the Text Format (Search) dialog box. The tabs on this

dialog box are similar to those on the Paragraph format and Paragraph Style

dialog boxes.

3) Choose the formats you want to search for and then click OK. The names of

selected formats appear under the Search for box. For example, you might

search for all text in 14-point bold Times New Roman.

4) To replace text as well as formatting, type the replacement text in the Replace

with box.

To search for specific text with specific formatting (for example, the word

hello in bold), specify the formatting, type the text in the Search for box and

leave the Replace with box blank.

To remove specific character formatting, click Format, select the Font tab,

then select the opposite format (for example, No Bold). The No Format button

on the Find & Replace dialog box clears all previously selected formats.

5) Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All

Tip

Unless you plan to search for other text using those same attributes,

click No Format to remove the attributes after completing your

search. If you forget to do this, you may wonder why your next search

fails to find words you know are in the document.

Find and replace paragraph styles

If you combine material from several sources, you may discover that lots of unwanted

paragraph styles have suddenly shown up in your document. To quickly change all

the paragraphs from one (unwanted) style to another (preferred) style:

1) On the expanded Find & Replace dialog box (Figure 65), select Search for

Styles. (If you have attributes specified, this option is labeled Including

Styles.) The Search for and Replace with boxes now contain a list of styles.

2) Select the styles you want to search for and replace.

3) Click Find, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each style that you want to replace.

Use wildcards (regular expressions)

Wildcards (also known as regular expressions) are combinations of characters that

instruct OOo how to search for something. Regular expressions are very powerful but

not very intuitive. They can save time and effort by combining multiple finds into one.

Table 2 shows a few of the regular expressions used by OOo.

Tip

The online help describes many more regular expressions and their

uses.

Chapter 3 Working with Text 67

1 2 ... 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 ... 463 464

Comments to this Manuals

No comments

OpenOffice.org OpenOffice - 3.3 User Manual Page 67

Comments to this Manuals