Indesign Find And Replace Using External XL File

[tavlit]

hi all

i have an indesign book in english with lots of repetative textual segments.

the client sent me an excel file with 2 columns

A1-A500  -  the english source

B1-B500  -  the destination language

i am looking for a script in java or grep that can do the following

1 - select list of changes  - an xl file that has 2 columns A and B

2 - put the A1 in the "find" area

3  - put the B1 translation in the change area

4  - run until line is empty (A501)

5 Done

i have the find and replace by list

but that means i have to copy paste the list from xl to the script

any ideas?

Gil

[grefel]

xl means excel? anyway, try to convert it to a csv file.

if you're familar with regular expressions simply prepare you xl file with an external texteditor (e.g. notepad ++ http://notepad-plus-plus.org/) with the findChangeByList.jsx syntax.

should be sth like:

find: (.+?);(.+?)

replace: text    {findWhat:"$1"}    {changeTo:"$2"}    {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, ...

and the run the file with findchangebylist.jsx

gregor

[tavlit]

hi

thanks gregor

can you explain what it means?

should be sth like:

find: (.+?);(.+?)

replace: text    {findWhat:"$1"}    {changeTo:"$2"}    {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, ...

what is .+?

what does $ means

can you make the script serach by length of characters?

suppose i have a sentanceL

"hold the insert toolholder......."

and i have a list of experssions: "insert toolholder, insert"

i need to change "insert toolholder" before i translate the "insert"

or i will have mixed sentences?

any ideas?

gil

[grefel]

hey gil,

my previous post was a little sloppy. he idea was to create the needed FindChangeList.txt file out of your xl file with the help of regular expressions instead of copy paste.

For this you nedd to:

1. save your excel file as csv
2. change your csv file to FindChangeList.txt
3. use it.

problem is to convert your csv to the appropriate format: you need regular

expressions for this. check out

http://www.regular-expressions.info/tutorial.html

the provided example was to select both columns in the csv file (assumed a ; as separator): (.+?);(.+?)

.+? is a regular expression and means: select any character (one ore more times) until you find the delimiter (in this case ; ). the brackets are used to memorize the findings.

in the replace dialog you can use the findings with $1 and $2 respetively: that menas you can put the contents of the first brackets (column) in the findWhat field and the second column in the changeTo field.

after replacing a lines your FindChangeList is ready for use.

you can search for a given length, but i do not get your example. what exactly is your sentence? what is in the first column what is in the second column of you xls file and what problems can occur?

reagrds,

gregor

[tavlit]

dear gregor

here is a link for the files

read the read me first

thanks

gil

http://www.hagitdesigns.com/gregor/

[Jongware]

1. Your Excel conversion to FindChangeList format idea seems okay, apart from one thing: both findWhat and changeTo strings should have double quotes around them. As they are now,

grep {findWhat:lang1"} {changeTo:"lang2} {incl...(etc.)

the opening one after findWhat and the closing one after changeTo are missing.

2. Your first line contains 2 definitions. Each separate definition should be on a line of its own. (This might occur elsewhere as well, didn't check.)

3. Any double quotes inside strings will cause problems. Precede them with a backslash to 'escape' them and convert them to a literal character. I found this one:

"(for IC5/8"V)"

-- change to

"(for IC5/8\"V)"

4. Some of your strings start with double double quotes:

changeTo:""(MITM刀具见254页 ...

5. To prevent your problem with this order

grep {findWhat:Inserts"} ...

grep {findWhat:Inserts Ordering Code System"} ...

sort your Excel list alphabetically, case preserving, in reverse order.

You probably also want wholeWord:true, and caseSensitive:true.

Hope this helps!

[grefel]

hey jongware,

you're too fast. i've got no chance to anser

i did not find anything to add!

gregor

[grefel]

yepp, found something to add:

you do not need to export CSV.

For Unicode support simply export Unicode Text File Format from Excel. The resuling file is delimited with tabs.

gregor