Saturday, May 20, 2006

Find Non Alpha Backward

Under.zip (XInfo) "FindNonAlphaBwd" - Locates the next string of non-alphabetic characters in the current document. Ideal for skipping backwards to the next punctuation.

Friday, May 19, 2006

BookMarkEachHeading

Under.zip (XBookMarks) "BookMarkEachHeading" - Assign a bookmark to each major Heading level. Paragraphs that is styled as "“Heading 1"” will receive a craftily coded bookmark that indicates the heading level and sequence in the document. See also the macro "“RemoveAllBookmarks".”

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Hard Space Digits

Under.zip (XTextChange) "HardSpaceDigits" - Locates each instance of a letter followed by a space character followed by a digit, and replaces the soft space with a hard space (ASC 160).
I use this macro to avoid line run-overs with strings such as "178 Victoria Park Avenue 7th Floor"

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Digit Hard Hyphen

Under.zip (XTextChange) "DigitHardHyphen" - Locates each instance of a digit-hyphen combination (dhl, lhd, dhd, lhl) replacing the soft hyphen with a hard hyphen (ASC-030). I use this to avoid line run-overs with strings such as "“416-967-1111 X102"”

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Hard Spaces

Under.zip (XTextChange) "HardSpaces" - This macro replaces soft spaces (ASCII 032) with hard spaces (ASCII 160) in the current selection.

Monday, May 15, 2006

Rule Of Digits

Under.zip (XTextFormat) "RuleOfDigits" - The debate continues; I learned it as the "Rule of Seven", but some technical writing colleagues of mine say it is the "Rule Of Six". As a compromise I've named it the "Rule Of Digits".
The rule of seven, especially for presentations, suggests no more than seven lines per slide, no more than seven words per line.
Microsoft has several different definitions of what constitutes a word.
This macro lets you choose the maximum allowable length of any paragraph, and then flags excess material in Red.
Run the macro on any document that has long paragraphs.