Spelling Macro

[PieOPah]

I am currently trying to write a macro to convert US spelling to UK

I have something like this -

Sub Spelling()
'
' Spelling Macro
' Macro recorded 29/11/2008 by Simon Argent
'
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "color"
        .Replacement.Text = "colour"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

    With Selection.Find
        .Text = "flavor"
        .Replacement.Text = "flavour"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll

Is there a more efficient way of doing this - or is there already a macro available I can use?

Many thanks,

[HarryT]

I admire your technical prowess, but I have to question the actual thing you're trying to do.

Books are written in either British or American English - they are distinct "variants" of the language. I just don't see the point of trying to "convert" an American English book to use British English spellings - it will still use American English grammatical constructs, and it will be obvious to the reader that it was written by an American author. What's the point?

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by PieOPah

I am currently trying to write a macro to convert US spelling to UK

The problem with writing a macro as you are doing is that you have to write a sequence for each word, which will make the macro -- eventually -- so bloated that it will run increasingly slowly, plus it will be difficult to prevent duplication.

I don't know how often you need to do this (or want to do this), but if you have a great need to do this and to do so on a frequent basis, you might want to invest in my set of macros called EditTools. One of the modules included in the macro is called Language Conversion, which is described here. This module will work for converting any language to another language. I use it regularly to convert from non-U.S. spelling to U.S. spelling in the medical books I edit.

[PieOPah]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What's the point?

I find a lot of the words really annoying.

Color, honor, valor, alunium etc.

Most words don't bother me too much, just some of the more obvious spelling differences - plus if I can sweep through with a macro, it makes the spell check later on so much easier.

I'll stick to the macro I have and add any words as I come across them.

Repeats will be unlikely as once a word has been changed, the spell check won't pick it up meaning I won't add it into the macro again.

I can stop it becoming too bloated by only sticking to specific words and living with the rest.

Thanks,

[DaleDe]

One method would be to use a specific British dictionary which would identify American spelling as incorrect. I never heard of alunium in an American spelling.

Dale

[PieOPah]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

One method would be to use a specific British dictionary which would identify American spelling as incorrect. I never heard of alunium in an American spelling.

Dale

Fair enough, probably misspelled anyway,but English is Aluminium...

I wanted the macro to speed things up - for some reason in Word, change all never does...

The macro as is seems to be doing it's job - I rarely have to add any new words now - I just wanted to know if there was a more efficient way of writting the macro. Obviously not...

[=X=]

Originally Posted by PieOPah

Is there a more efficient way of doing this - or is there already a macro available I can use?

Many thanks,

Yes there is a much more efficient way of doing this, but it gets more complicated.

A better way would be to do a while loop with a case statment inside

PSUDO CODE
Match = "color|honor|etc..."

Look for match
While (Match not found)

select (match)

  case "color"
 replace("color","colour")
  case "honor"
 replace("honor","honour")
end select
Look for match
WEND

This way you only search through the document once and replace each word with the correct selection as you find them.


All the source examples you need are found in the tool BookCreator except for the case statement but a google on "vba select case example" should give you a good example on how to write one.

=X=

[PieOPah]

Many thanks for this =X=

And while I'm at it, thank you for the eBookCreator macros. It was using this that encouraged me to create one for spellings.

I have done a search but for some reason I only get porn results????
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourc...ase+example%22

Will keep hunting

[JSWolf]

It just seems silly to me to replace words in this way. If it has color or colour is up to the author. For example, I am reading the Discword series. Terry Pratchett is clearly from the UK. If I went and replaced all colour to color, it would not change the fact. It's obvious fromt he way he writes. I would find it annoying to read UK spellings of some words and then to have cearly American words. Just let the author be American if the author is American.

[PieOPah]

Some spellings don't bother me others really do...

centred (UK)
centreed (US)

That is really annoying...

Aluminum (US)
Aluminium (UK)

again, another one which annoys me!

There are more specifics, but I'm not going to list everything, I am sur eyou get this gist!

And again, with the ability to do so, isn't it MY choice as to whether I read american spelling or UK English?

[Patricia]

Actually, the UK spelling of those words are "centred" and "aluminium".

[PieOPah]

Thank you. Typo on centred and got the UK/US wrong way round for Aluminium. I am ill today so will forgive myself those mistakes

Corrected now BTW

[Patricia]

I hope that you feel better soon, PieOPah.

[PieOPah]

Thank you

[JSWolf]

The American way of spelling centered is centered.

Yes, it is your choice. But the won't the feel of the book maybe be changed? We already had Harry Potter being changed for the US market and I think that was a really bad idea.

What is it about American spelling that bugs you so much?