Personally, I would create a custom column (#ser_initials) and enter the specific name that I want when Saving to Disk. No processing involved. You can control
exactly what appears (capitalization, symbols, grouping, etc). Once set, the initials are permanent.
I'm not enough of a RegEx guru (the commands you're using as the 'template' in Code sections 1&2) to help you further. But Code 1's template would be the start to automatically capturing the series initials with the Edit Metadata in Bulk's Search & Replace feature. You would need to tweak it further for capturing and then storing the value into ser_initials.
This would fill the ser_initials custom column with your current, incorrect names... but would save you from lots of manual data entry. Then you could use Edit Series:ser_initials, to fix any errors (like "(Esdlr(dor" being corrected to "Esdlr(Tdor)") for all books with the same series initials at once, and you're good to go thereafter, permanently.
I cannot speak to which of these two methods (your plugboards or my custom column approach) is better or more efficient. I
think (no proof!) Plugboards would take more CPU processing cycles while the custom column takes up disk and memory space. But, ATM, I'm using an older, slower PC and CPU cycles are more of an issue for me. Of course, YMMV.
