Can I create contractions throughout a document? (e.g., It is --> It's)

[wayne.west]

My company recently updated it's style guidelines. Previously, we couldn't use contractions, but now we are. So when I update our documents, I have to go through and change "It is" to "It's", "you are" to you're" and "We are" to "We're", etc, etc.

Is there a script to make this easier? It is really tedious right now.

I've been using find/replace which helps somewhat. But is it possible to script something that would make it even easier?

[Jongware]

Use the FindChangeByList script from the Sample Scripts folder. Its (not "it's") syntax is described in the sample txt document. Make sure you are using tabs to separate the items, though, as a common mistake is to use regular spaces.

[wayne.west]

OH thank you! I think this is exactly what I need.

However, I get an error -2741 when I run the script. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Here's what I created (simple one line for now):

text

{find what:”You are”}

{change to:”You’re”}

{include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}

Find all You are and replace with You’re.

[wayne.west]

Ah! I found the error! My text editor wants to replace the dumb quotes with smart quotes. When I disable that in preferences, and use dumb quotes, then the script works like a charm!

[Raag25804015f4fk]

@wayne.west - This isn't working for me 😕 I don't get an error -2741 but it just doesn't replace the words I want it to. Can you please share a screenshot of the code you're using?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You've revived a ten-year-old topic, here. WW hasn't posted since then and, er, Jongware has left this plane of existence.

This is another area where a few well-formed Find/Replace operations, perhaps using GREP, might serve just as well as a script.

ETA: The longer I think about it, the less such a wholesale conversion of a language element makes sense, even in bureaucratic boilerplate. (1) Why bother and (2) not every instance is going to read well without editorial review.

[BobLevine]

As noted, this is a ten year old discussion. I am locking it to avoid any future confusion. If you need help, please start a new discussion with full details.