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Enter multiple text substitutions on one screen

When you click on “Text Find & Replace” on the main screen, a new screen (“Multiple Parameter Entry”) will open. This screen allows you to enter all of your substitutions in one place, one substitution per row.

Please refer to the Substitution Parameters Help Page for the explanation of the different parameters (columns).

Buttons

  • “ADD ANOTHER SUBSTITUTION” – creates a new line at the bottom of the list.
  • “X” in the “Del” column – deletes that line.
  • “RESET” – removes all substitutions.
  • “LOAD FROM EXCEL OR CSV TEMPLATE” – loads all of your substitutions from an Excel (.xlsx) or .csv file (see separate help topic on that). You can then fine tune your substitutions on this screen if necessary!
  • “EXPORT TO CSV” – saves the substitutions on this screen, with all of their options and formatting settings, to a .csv file. The file has the same column headings as the template, so it can be loaded back later.
  • “DOWNLOAD TEMPLATE” – opens the downloads page of our website, where the template is: http://www.officefindreplace.com/Home/Downloads
  • “Validate, Save And Close” – saves and exits (see below).

NOTE: When you are entering multiple rows, click on the column header at the top of a check box column (“Body” through “Follow Case”) to select / deselect the entire column. This is very useful when you have a lot of substitutions. The “OPT” menus in the header row do the same for the text options: they set all rows to Text, WildCard or Regular Expressions at once.

Saving

Click on “Validate, Save And Close” to save and exit. All the regular expressions and wild card patterns will be validated before the data is saved. If one of them is not correct, a message is shown and the screen stays open.

Two more checks are made at this point:

  1. If a plain “Text To Find” starts or ends with a blank, the “Text To Find Blanks Warning!” window lists those entries. Click “Fix Blanks And Continue” to remove the blanks, “Continue Without Fixing” to keep them, or “Cancel” to return to the entry screen.
  2. If a line has “Hyper Links” checked but “Body” unchecked, the “Hyperlinks-Only Search Warning!” window lists those entries, because with “Body” off the main document text is not searched. Click “Enable Body And Continue”, “Continue Without Changing”, or “Cancel” to return to the entry screen.

Lines where both “Text To Find” and “Text To Replace” are empty are removed when the screen is saved.

Color coding

Note that “Text To Find” and “Text To Replace” are color coded for clarity.

  • Plain text entry has White background color.
  • Wild Card text is coded in Yellow.
  • Regular Expressions are coded in Green.
  • A Wild Card or Regular Expression pattern that is entered incorrectly is coded in Pink.

Limits

  • “Text To Find” and “Text To Replace” can each be up to 4000 characters long. Longer text is truncated, with a warning. Hover over a text box to see the length of its text.
  • The Lite version allows 10 substitutions at a time and does not load from a template.

See more info in the Substitution Parameters Help Page.