Find

Have a problem? A question? This is the place for answers from other Express users.
Post Reply
Reiner
Posts: 38
Joined: 2005-03-12 02:47:59

Find

Post by Reiner »

Is it possible that I can't find and replace formatted text (bold, italic ...)? I can't believe, that this outstanding Find-Replace-Tool can't handle this.
Peder
Posts: 24
Joined: 2004-09-23 02:39:19
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden

Re:Find

Post by Peder »

Hi!

Yes, you can. Highlight some formated text of the type you want to find, italic, bold, and then click on the underlined "a" in the bottom right margin (with the flag, etc). You'll get a pop-up meny with the alternative Select All. Chose this and all instances of the formatting throughout the document will be highlighted and you can apply any new formatting you'd like. You can do the same with the Styles symbols (Paragraph and Character) next to it. Most of us are used to having this sort of thing integrated in the Find and Replace function, and I agree this is unusual and has certain drawbacks – you can't jump from one instance to the other (not in any way I know of, but meybe somebody else does :wink:) and decide which to change and which not to, but at the same time it has a strange kind of strength worth investigating.

Hope it workds for you & good luck!

Peder
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
marc
Posts: 83
Joined: 2004-07-06 08:45:15
Location: Australia
Contact:

Post by marc »

Yes, the status bar icons are a good, but apparently under-used, feature... for more discussion, see That American Flag thread, for more discussion, mainly around the language indicator.

IMHO one way to make these 'select similarly formatted' commands more accessible, would be to add them to a 'Select' group in the contextual (right/control-click) menu.

Picture selecting a given word set to Style X, and the contextual menu changes to include an option to Select all text set to Style X (i.e. the name of the active style, or other formatting attributes would change dynamically.)

It's not the only solution, and contextual menus are themselves a rather flawed UI mechanism, but it could be useful to experienced users, and would at least link these contextual commands to the object they act upon.
Post Reply