by C.K. MacLeod
Do you use Find and Replace in Word for editing tasks? Want to supercharge your mad Find and Replace skills? Here’s how.
Recently, editor Paul Beverley contacted me to show me how FRedit, a macro that he wrote, can be customized to perform a bunch of useful writing and editing tasks. It’s a find and replace macro, which means that it can take a slew of find and replace tasks that you’d normally do one at a time, and execute them all at once.
If you’ve been nervous about trying a macro, this is your way in. This find and replace macro will allow you to list, in a Word document, all the find and replace tasks you want to do. Run the macro and it will do them for you all at once.
An added bonus: You can keep the list for future writing or editing projects, or you can create customized lists for each project you work on.
Now how does that sound?
Trying FRedit
I gave FRedit a try. I wanted to see if it could identify and highlight words whose meanings writers tend to mix up. It can. In fact, FRedit performed better than the Confusables macro that I posted here. It was able to find words in all their forms. For example, the macro will pick up compliment, complimented, compliments, complimentary, complimenting, etc.
And as it turns out, FRedit can do a host of other things, too. Such as Wildcard searches. You are only limited by your imagination, and your understanding of Word’s Find and Replace and Wildcard codes!
How to Use FRedit
- Download the FRedit macro from Archive Publishing.
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Add the macro script, or code, to Word’s VBA. If you’re not sure how to do this, this 20-Minute Macro course will get you started.
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To use FRedit, you need two documents open:
a. The Word file containing your writing
b. A “script” file that tells FRedit what to do
In my case, my script file contained a list of of commonly confused words.
You can get the Confusables script here. Copy and paste it into a Word document.
4. Run the FRedit macro.
Tip: Have only two Word documents open when you run FRedit: your script file and the document containing your writing.
A Flexible Tool
FRedit is a flexible tool. You can use any script, correctly written, to get FRedit to do something different each time. The instruction file that accompanies the macro offers examples and guidelines for how to make the most of this handy macro.
FRedit is a workhorse, and a boon for Mac users who often don’t have access to automated commercial editing tools. I’m already thinking about other ways to bend FRedit to my will.
Do you use FRedit? I’d love to hear how you use it!
Image by Martin Pettitt