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Posted to users@openoffice.apache.org by geoff mehl <ge...@verizon.net> on 2014/03/14 20:36:54 UTC
feedback requests
A friend noted that OO is looking for beta testers, which is not totally
my cup of tea, but I noticed the feedback request link and thought I
might chime in.
I am a *huge* fan of Open Office and a very heavy user of Writer (the
other apps, like their MS counterparts, are okay, but not useful to me)
I turned to OO because Microsoft screwed up a good thing when they went
beyond Office 2003. The features of particular interest are:
a) the ability to customize the toolbar, eliminating never-used stuff
and lining up important commands
b) the ability to easily write and tweak macros AND make toolbar buttons
to run them
Like MS Word, I know you can "save" a file as html -- and like Word, OO
will create html to make an exact replica of the page. But I do a lot of
web work and like nice, clean, pure code. So to create custom styles
(P, TD, DD, DT, LI, H1, etc.) and then write a macro for Word to read
those styles and insert appropriate html tags was golden. Ditto going
from tagged copy into, say, InDesign and picking up book styles.
Open Office is wonderful for creating macros, but I have to use an
add-on (Alt Find & Replace) to interpret styles. It took a bit of doing
to figure out "regular expressions" but I was able to do it -- and much
more efficiently than in Word. With pre-designed web templates, complex
pages can be composed in a familiar and easy to use word processor, but
instantly converted into perfectly pure, clean code.
So a genuine plus for OO would be the ability to search for
text/paragraph styles and replace with whatever option via a macro.
A second plus for OO is the ability to import an odt document into
Calibre and convert it into an e-book (including pdf), either
maintaining original format or adapting to classic ebook styles. This is
not possible to do with Word.
Finally, I also like that OO can read and save as Word formats --
helpful when dealing with the unfortunates of the world who still rely
on Word.
There are a few quirks with OO, but not anywhere near the quirks with
Word, so it's an excellent application to work with. Keep it simple,
let users modify it for specialized use, don't try to go one-on-one with
Word -- not worth the trouble!
best wishes for continued success!
geoff mehl
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Re: feedback requests
Posted by Martin Groenescheij <Ma...@Groenescheij.COM>.
On 16-4-2014 3:32, Allen Schaaf wrote:
> Hi Martin,
>
> Thanks for the tip! Just so I'm clear, I would search for ^$^$^$ for
> three EOLs and replace them with a single ^$, correct?
That doesn't work but you can use a combination of:
^$ for an empty paragraph
\p for paragraph ending
\p* for multiple paragraph endings
By the way you can download the Alternative Find & Replace
<http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/alternative-dialog-find-replace-writer-altsearch>
extension which is an easy menu based tool.
>
> Allen
>
> On 4/15/2014 1:03 AM, Martin Groenescheij wrote:
>> Search for ^$ and Replace with
>>
>> On 15-4-2014 17:44, Allen Schaaf wrote:
>>>
>>> On 3/14/2014 12:36 PM, geoff mehl wrote:
>>>> A friend noted that OO is looking for beta testers, which is not
>>>> totally my cup of tea, but I noticed the feedback request link and
>>>> thought I might chime in.
>>>>
>>> [SNIP]
>>>
>>> I, too, have a bit of feedback. A minor annoyance I've asked about
>>> in the past and never got an answer that works.
>>>
>>> I get a lot of documents that have multiple end of paragraph
>>> elements and I have never figured out how to find and replace 3 (or
>>> whatever) with 1 to clean up scanned documents and documents that
>>> were deliberately double spaced with EOPs rather than simply setting
>>> the leading.
>>>
>>> I wind up exporting to Word and fixing this and then back to OO. Be
>>> nice if I could save this trip.
>>>
>>> BTW, the EOP mark is not after a period in most cases in a scanned
>>> document so I can't search for those as a way to solve this problem.
>>>
>>> Thanks!
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------
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>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
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>>>
>>
>>
>
>
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>
>
Re: feedback requests
Posted by johnny smith <ka...@krovatka.su>.
On Tue, 15 Apr 2014 17:32:29 -0000, Allen Schaaf <ne...@sound-by-design.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the tip! Just so I'm clear, I would search for ^$^$^$
> for three EOLs and replace them with a single ^$, correct?
no, search with regular expressions is limited to one paragraph, so you can use only one ^ and one $ in your query. also, in the 'replace with' field the $ character has a meaning different from that in the 'search for' field and the ^ character has no special meaning at all. look for 'regular expressions' in openoffice help for more information.
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Re: feedback requests
Posted by Allen Schaaf <ne...@sound-by-design.com>.
Hi Martin,
Thanks for the tip! Just so I'm clear, I would search for ^$^$^$
for three EOLs and replace them with a single ^$, correct?
Allen
On 4/15/2014 1:03 AM, Martin Groenescheij wrote:
> Search for ^$ and Replace with
>
> On 15-4-2014 17:44, Allen Schaaf wrote:
>>
>> On 3/14/2014 12:36 PM, geoff mehl wrote:
>>> A friend noted that OO is looking for beta testers, which is
>>> not totally my cup of tea, but I noticed the feedback request
>>> link and thought I might chime in.
>>>
>> [SNIP]
>>
>> I, too, have a bit of feedback. A minor annoyance I've asked
>> about in the past and never got an answer that works.
>>
>> I get a lot of documents that have multiple end of paragraph
>> elements and I have never figured out how to find and replace
>> 3 (or whatever) with 1 to clean up scanned documents and
>> documents that were deliberately double spaced with EOPs
>> rather than simply setting the leading.
>>
>> I wind up exporting to Word and fixing this and then back to
>> OO. Be nice if I could save this trip.
>>
>> BTW, the EOP mark is not after a period in most cases in a
>> scanned document so I can't search for those as a way to solve
>> this problem.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> -------------------------------------------
>> List Conduct Guidelines:
>> http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org
>>
>
>
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Re: feedback requests
Posted by Martin Groenescheij <Ma...@Groenescheij.COM>.
Search for ^$ and Replace with
On 15-4-2014 17:44, Allen Schaaf wrote:
>
> On 3/14/2014 12:36 PM, geoff mehl wrote:
>> A friend noted that OO is looking for beta testers, which is not
>> totally my cup of tea, but I noticed the feedback request link and
>> thought I might chime in.
>>
> [SNIP]
>
> I, too, have a bit of feedback. A minor annoyance I've asked about in
> the past and never got an answer that works.
>
> I get a lot of documents that have multiple end of paragraph elements
> and I have never figured out how to find and replace 3 (or whatever)
> with 1 to clean up scanned documents and documents that were
> deliberately double spaced with EOPs rather than simply setting the
> leading.
>
> I wind up exporting to Word and fixing this and then back to OO. Be
> nice if I could save this trip.
>
> BTW, the EOP mark is not after a period in most cases in a scanned
> document so I can't search for those as a way to solve this problem.
>
> Thanks!
>
> -------------------------------------------
> List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org
>
Re: feedback requests
Posted by johnny smith <ka...@krovatka.su>.
On Tue, 15 Apr 2014 07:44:13 -0000, Allen Schaaf <ne...@sound-by-design.com> wrote:
> I get a lot of documents that have multiple end of paragraph
> elements and I have never figured out how to find and replace 3
> (or whatever) with 1 to clean up scanned documents and documents
> that were deliberately double spaced with EOPs rather than simply
> setting the leading.
the problem is that the find-and-replace function has its vision limited to only one paragraph if regular expressions are enabled, and if they are not, then there is no way to enter the end-of-line character into the 'search for' box. however, you can merge all your text into one paragraph to lift this limitation.
just enter '$' to the 'search for' box and '~~~~\n' (or something equally square to mark line breaks) to the 'replace with' box, then perform in turn the 'replace all' and 'find all' operations and hit the 'delete' key on your keyboard (prepare to wait a couple of minutes here if the document is long enough; you will not see any progress bar, so the program will confusingly seem freezed). after that, the find-and-replace's field of vision is no more limited to one paragraph (well, it is still limited, but that paragraph now contains all the text), so you may replace three consecutive ~~~~ marks with one and then replace them back with '\n'.
another way is to install the altsearch extension:
http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/alternative-dialog-find-replace-writer-altsearch
one of its features is that searched or replaced text can contain one or more paragraphs. however, i have never tried it.
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Re: feedback requests
Posted by Allen Schaaf <ne...@sound-by-design.com>.
On 3/14/2014 12:36 PM, geoff mehl wrote:
> A friend noted that OO is looking for beta testers, which is
> not totally my cup of tea, but I noticed the feedback request
> link and thought I might chime in.
>
[SNIP]
I, too, have a bit of feedback. A minor annoyance I've asked
about in the past and never got an answer that works.
I get a lot of documents that have multiple end of paragraph
elements and I have never figured out how to find and replace 3
(or whatever) with 1 to clean up scanned documents and documents
that were deliberately double spaced with EOPs rather than simply
setting the leading.
I wind up exporting to Word and fixing this and then back to OO.
Be nice if I could save this trip.
BTW, the EOP mark is not after a period in most cases in a
scanned document so I can't search for those as a way to solve
this problem.
Thanks!
-------------------------------------------
List Conduct Guidelines: http://openoffice.apache.org/list-conduct.html
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org