Word Formatting Macro (Stingo's Macro)

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by RWood

It looks like I will be adding a page or so the the Wiki this weekend on conversion tools like Book Designer and the like. I think the Word Formatting Macro should be there too and will include it in the listing.

Thank you - please do! Since this is a "non sticky" topic it just tend to slide down the topic list, and it's such a useful thing!

[Aprilbeginnings]

Originally Posted by NatCh

Remember, nothing says "thank you" quite like like karma!

Well thank you. Didn't even think about the karma. And one for you too!

[pinenut]

Originally Posted by Stingo

I got tired of going through the properties menu to fill in the the title and author information in converted files so I modified the Word macro to pop up a window at the start which lets you fill the information in. The window is non-modal so you can cut and paste the author and title from the document.

Download the zip file, expand the two files in its contents. Open word, open macros. Select the old macro or if you have never installed this macro before follow instructions elsewhere on this thread. Edit the macro. Drag and drop the two files in the sip unto the forms item in the macro window. Cut and paste the macro text below.

Sub ebook_formatter()
'
' ebook_formatter Macro
' Macro created 11/28/2006 by Jorge Espinosa
'
' This step take you to the top of your document

Selection.GoTo What:=wdGoToPage, Which:=wdGoToNext, Name:="1"

' Author Title Box
'
title_author_form.Titlebox = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties("Title"). Value

title_author_form.Authorbox = ActiveDocument.BuiltInDocumentProperties("Author") .Value

title_author_form.Show

' This step clears formatting and sets font to my preferred size
'
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchByte = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

End Sub

I am having difficulty dragging and dropping the two files unto the forms item in the macro window. I don't see any forms item when I open the edit macro window.

Can you help me?

[Vaporware]

Originally Posted by pinenut

I am having difficulty dragging and dropping the two files unto the forms item in the macro window. I don't see any forms item when I open the edit macro window.

Can you help me?

me too. the frx file didn't load when I tried to apply them.

[Stingo]

Sorry for the problems. I'll take a look at it tonight and refresh the instructions. I am rewriting the macro as a C# program and it should be much easier to use without having to open Word.

[pitolee]

Also had problems dragging the .frx file. Look forward to the Macro rewrite... any updates since January?

[Stingo]

I'm sorry but I had not gone back to work on the macro since I considered BookDesigner a much superior tool. I really didn't see a reason to keep using the macro. If there is interest in using it I'll try to go back and address the issues.

[RWood]

I still use your macro (unchanged since I recorded it) as a prepress tool for BookDesigner. I find that I can edit sections of the text faster in Word than I can in BD so the whole process requires less elapsed time than if I had done the entire editing in BD. While many of the critical elements of the macro are also supported in BD, Your macro allows me to identify potential problem areas rapidly and fix many of them.

Perhaps with future versions of BD I too will cease using the macro. Until then it is a critical part of my editing and production process. Thank you again for this fine tool.

[JSWolf]

Can someone zip up a current copy and attach the maco here please? Thanks!

[RWood]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Can someone zip up a current copy and attach the maco here please? Thanks!

Here you go.

[Bob Russell]

I still use a version of this macro also - on every txt or rtf file before I load it into Sony Connect.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by RWood

Here you go.

Thanks!

What I plan on doing is having a look at this and seeing if there are any more things that can be added or might need changing.

[bookbinder]

Is there any way to add a function to this macro that would convert the text between underscores to italic? I have a lot of books only available in txt format which use this way of marking italics. I tried Word's autoformat feature but it only caught a small percentage of instances. If it can't be automated in Word, does anyone know of a program that could do this?

[kovidgoyal]

txt2lrf

[Greg G]

I'm trying to figure out how to remove leading white space (tabs or spaces). I just changed from Word 2003 to Words 2007 and now my old method of centering and then justifying does not work for tabs and in the macro it does not work at all. Anyone have a script for this?

Thanks!

-Greg