Sigil Proper Case Setting

[Themus]

I understand someday Sigil will have a feature where sentences can be converted to uppercase, lowercase and propercase, just like we can do now to make text bold, or italic.

I had found a free "cut and paste" utility that would allow me within Sigil to change text case. Now I cannot find it and I am hoping someone here would remember it.

I am not familiar with Regex everyone mentions.

I have a book with lot of subheadings that are in Upper case and I wish to change them to upper and lower. The utility I referenced above would cut the text via control -x and then put in back with control -v, but now in proper case.

Anyone remember or see that utility?

Tom

[DiapDealer]

Not really Sigil related, but perhaps it's one of the ones listed in this Best Free Clipboard Replacement Utility review site?.

[Themus]

Thank you. I saw those, though it didn't seem any automatically would change the case, but instead would use an editor. I did find one that works rather well. CaseChanger.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Themus

I understand someday Sigil will have a feature where sentences can be converted to uppercase, lowercase and propercase, just like we can do now to make text bold, or italic.

I had found a free "cut and paste" utility that would allow me within Sigil to change text case. Now I cannot find it and I am hoping someone here would remember it.

I am not familiar with Regex everyone mentions.

I have a book with lot of subheadings that are in Upper case and I wish to change them to upper and lower. The utility I referenced above would cut the text via control -x and then put in back with control -v, but now in proper case.

Anyone remember or see that utility?

Tom

Dolphin Text Editor

[grannyGrumpy]

I have a little autohotkey script I made that works in most any text editor, including Sigil (not in Word or any other app that has that feature built-in).

I wrote it to do Case changes on selected text with double-tap of CapsLock Key, use hotkeys to add curly quotes around selected text, add certain code tags around selected text, double-right-click to copy, triple-right-click to paste. (lots more too).
It runs in the background, accessed from the system tray.

I've only ever used it in XP SP3, but if anybody is interested, I can upload it. I can even compile it into a tiny exe file, if that is preferred.

[Doitsu]

The Sigil PCRE library already supports conversion to upper case and lower case with \U, \u, \L and \l back references.

For example:

Find: <p>(.*?)</p>
Replace: <p>\U\1\E</p>
Before:

<p>This is a test sentence.</p>

After:

<p>THIS IS A TEST SENTENCE.</p>

Find: <h3>([[:upper:]])([[:upper:]]{2,})
Replace: <h3>\1\L\2
Before:

<h3>CHAPTER 1</h3>

After:

<h3>Chapter 1</h3>

Find: <p>(.*?)</p>
Replace: <p>\u\1</p>
Before:

<p>this is a test sentence.</p>

After:

<p>This is a test sentence</p>

These back references are also useful for Project Gutenberg texts with all caps text instead of italics. For example:

Find: ([[:upper:]]{2,})
Replace: <i>\L\1\E</i>
Before:

<p>This should be in ITALICS.</p>

After:

<p>This should be in <i>italics</i>.</p>

[Jabby]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

The Sigil PCRE library already supports conversion to upper case and lower case with \U, \u, \L and \l back references.

Thanks. This will be handy;

However, I don;t understand the difference between \U and \u or \L and \l. Could you help?

Thanks - John

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Jabby

However, I don;t understand the difference between \U and \u or \L and \l.

\u and \l transform only one character, while \U and \L transform all characters. Have a look at the third example in my previous post.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

while \U and \L transform all characters. Have a look at the third example in my previous post.

All characters until it encounters \E.
Notice how your closing </p> tag was also capitalized in the initial example?

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

All characters until it encounters \E.
Notice how your closing </p> tag was also capitalized in the initial example?

Nice catch. I updated the replace string in the first example. And yes, I know that the second search string isn't textbook either, but I wanted to keep it simple.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

And yes, I know that the second search strings isn't textbook either, but I wanted to keep it simple.

I hadn't even noticed. I just knew (from screwing things up myself) that forgetting the \E can have some ugly/unexpected consequences... especially with complicated and/or extensive replace strings.

[Jabby]

Originally Posted by Doitsu

\u and \l transform only one character, while \U and \L transform all characters. Have a look at the third example in my previous post.

Thanks again.

Just used it to change chapter headers from "CHAPTER ONE / CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR" to "Chapter One / Chapter Thirty-Four".

Three step process but fast and easy.

This is what you call instant gratification.

Regards - John

[dwlamb]

I have a very long list of words that are all in capitals and it is necessary to change them to title case. For instance:

<li>DOG HOUSE</li>

needs to be

<li class="small-caps">Dog House</li>

The search string

<li>([A-Z])([A-Z]*)</li>

will find

<li>DOG</li>
<li>CAT</li>
<li>BIRD</li>

and replace them as I want using this replace syntax

<li class="small-caps">\1\L\2</li>

The list items I am searching on in come cases are as many as 5 words. Is there a method of RegEx to accomplish this or am I asking too much of this tool?

[Toxaris]

You can try:

search: <li>(.*?)</li>
replace: <li class="small-caps">\1</li>

[Doitsu]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

You can try:

search: <li>(.*?)</li>
replace: <li class="small-caps">\1</li>

That won't take care of the capitalization. I.e. the result will be pretty much the same, because applying small caps to an upper case string will still display the string as all caps.

@dwlamb: You could try the following:

search: <li>([[:upper:]| ]+)</li>
replace: <li>\L\1</li>

This will change all upper case list items to lower case, and if you're using a Webkit based ebook app (Kindle, iBooks etc.), you could fix the capitalization issue by applying a text-transform style to the <li> element and/or add text-transform: capitalize; to your small-caps style.

li {text-transform: capitalize; font-variant: small-caps;}

If that's not an option, you'll probably have to come up with custom search & replace strings for two or more upper case words, or use a scripting language.