Invisible Contractions

[JimT.]

I'm using the latest Atlantis in Windows XP SP2.

I've discovered that "Find" can't find contracted words. I wanted to change one novel character's use of "we'd" to "we had," and the only practical way to do that was to use the Find function. It found none, not even when I placed the cursor at the beginning of the contracted word. Not even when I highlighted the word.

I opened a new page, typed in a dozen different contractions, ranging from 'll words to 'nt words, and Find came up blank.

Should I reinstall the program, or is this a known problem with a fix?

[admin]

As you might know, there are different types of apostrophes. There are straight apostrophes. There are also "curly" (or "smart") apostrophes. Most probably the apostrophes in your document text and in the "Find / Replace" dialog are not the same. Please select the contracted word in the document, copy the selection to the clipboard, then paste to the "Find" box of the "Find / Replace" dialog, and try searching. Did it work?

[admin]

Note that if you enable the "Find word at cursor" option on the "Edit" tab of the "Tools | Options..." dialog (this option is on by default), you would not need to copy the selection to the clipboard before bringing the "Find / Replace" dialog. Atlantis would automatically pick up the selection, and load it to the "Find" box of the "Find / Replace" dialog.

[JimT.]

The apostrophe in Find is straight, but at a different angle, so I guess that's the problem. It worked when I pasted the word in. I still have to find the word in the document to copy/paste it in the first place, but hopefully that won't be a frequent problem. Thanks

[Robert]

I still have to find the word in the document to copy/paste it in the first place, but hopefully that won't be a frequent problem. Thanks

Greetings–
Here is a possible workaround.

1. Activate the "Num Lock" mode of your keyboard (press the Num Lock key if the Num Lock indicator is not highlighted on your keyboard).
2. Press and hold down the Alt key.
3. Still holding down the Alt key, press "x" on the keyboard.
4. Still holding down the Alt key, press "02" on the numeric pad, then "bc" on the main keyboard.
5. Release the Alt key. This will insert a curly apostrophe in the document window.
5. Select that curly apostrophe and press "Ctrl+X" to cut it.
6. Press Ctrl+H to open the Find/Replace dialog.
7. Click in the Find box and press "Ctrl+V" to insert the curly apostrophe. It won't be pasted as a curly apostrophe but as some kind of square symbol. Ignore it.
8. Click in the "Replace with" box and press the common (straight) apostrophe on your keyboard.
9. Press "Replace All" in the Find dialog.
10. When the above replacements are made, click in the Find box again and type "we'd" (or any other replacement that you want to make).
11. Click in the "Replace with" box and type "we had".
12. Press "Replace All" in the Find dialog.
13. Repeat steps 10 to 12 for each replacement that you'd like to make.

Now when all these replacements have been made, you might want to restore all other curly apostrophes in the document.

1. Open the “Tools | AutoCorrect Options...” dialog and make sure that the “Replace quotes with ...” option is checked. OK out of the dialog.
2. Place the insertion point at the start of the document (Ctrl+Home).
3. Click "Tools | AutoCorrect".
4. Press "Reject All" for all suggestions that AutoCorrect will make, except for the suggestion to "Replace straight ' with curly '" for which you should press "Accept All". AutoCorrect will automatically replace all instances of a straight apostrophe with its curly counterpart.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Robert

[JimT.]

Thanks, Robert. Now all I have to do is find a ten-year-old kid to guide me through the process