I’ve been living with this for years, but recently the kind of thing I’m working on makes it worse and worse.
Does anyone else have this problem when editing in Word?
If you do a global Find and Replace action, and then try to go back later and do another Find and Replace on the same string or set, Find won’t detect the occurrence of the item to be found.
Period.
So you have just pasted (for example) a two or three word set (which occurs in multiple locations throughout the doc) into the Find field, and it comes up saying Word found 0 occurrences.
Arrgh.
Now, I have only ever seen this in docs that have originated with or been modified on systems using Chinese, I suspect it might have something to do with this.
Anyone know how the jeez I can get around this?
Have you tried updating your Microsoft Office? You know… the same way you would update Windows, but you update Office instead? I mean, if it’s a known bug, they might have sorted it out.
[quote=“irishstu”]Have you tried updating your Microsoft Office? You know… the same way you would update Windows, but you update Office instead? I mean, if it’s a known bug, they might have sorted it out.
office.microsoft.com/en-us/downl … fault.aspx[/quote]
Thanks, but no dice, everything’s current.
Could you maybe email me an example?
If you replace “A” with “B”, and then do it again, it won’t find any “A” because they’re all “B”
I think he’s looking for B now.
I’ve just tried this out on a document which was originally done in Chinese, but had some English now, but I couldn’t replicate your problem.
Could it be a font problem?
D-uh, do ya think?
No, I’m talking about replacing A with B, and then later, when something with B needs changing, Word says there aren’t ANY occurrences of B in the document.
OK, here’s an example.
The original writer has used “a program for generating” throughout the document. I want it to say “a program generating”, but I know there are times where he might have said “application” or something else, so I paste “for generating” in Find and put “generating” in the Replace.
Replace All, boom boom.
Next page, however, I see that he’s also written about a “method for generating”, which has been changed to “method generating”, and I want to keep the “for”.
So I paste “method generating” in Find, and it says it has located ZERO occurrences in the document.
I can SEE at least three on the page, and I know there are a bunch more.
Further, it’s usually impractical to use Undo to go back to my original F&R, because I may have made 20 or 30 little changes in the meantime.
I can guarantee you I’ve never seen this problem in documents that have no content or history using Chinese, I’m certain it’s associated.
Damn, even if I make part of the phrase a Chinese font (like “MingLiu”) and the other part, say, “Ariel”, it still finds the whole phrase.
do you have fast save enabled?
have you closed and reopened the file (which finalises many hanging changes)?
have you included a space in the search string where there may not be one in chinese? (guessing here)
any changes have to be incorporated into the document before they are in the ‘searchable field’ rather than kept as additions which are in a separate part of the file, waiting to be inserteed when you close the document. fast saving simply saves the ‘changes pending’ list, rather than incorporating the changes into the text (blame the concept of ‘multiple undo’ sheets for this.) it is worse when you have ‘track changes’ enabled.
yet another reason to raise one’s hands in the air at the supposed superiority of MS. dominant by virtue of marketing and product placement, not by virtue of technical merit.
Sounds like the first search and replace is somehow breaking the text and it can’t find it again. Has he typed the English while in Chinese mode or something stupid like that ? 
What version (and language) of Word and Windows are you using ? It might help me google it.
No sir, I do not.
Yes sir, I did try that, and the problem remains (great minds obviously thinking alike, or maybe just having been buggered by Word too many times).
Sorry, none of the content is happening in Chinese, it’s all English content, all in English fonts.
And yes, Track Changes (or “Trace Changes”, as my charmingly moronic content providers persist in calling it) is, in fact, enabled.
Try the things in here, similar to the suggestion above
techwr-l.com/techwhirl/archi … 00806.html
Oh, I can totally see how track changes could fuck it up, like, “royally” (by breaking up the phrase).
Man, you get fluffier all the time.
This is, I believe, the root of the problem.
Word, under a Chinese-set XP OS, sets the dominant Default font to be Asian with the English font the “secondary” Default.
And I, not being the “owner” can’t do anything about it.
So in fact I’m not really working with “real” English text, it’s like once-removed, as Iris Stu experienced earlier.
This, there isn’t much I can do about.
Re-authoring just ain’t going to happen, I’m getting stuff from as many as 50 different providers.
2K and Word 2003 SP2.
both about the most stable variants around. looks like you have to grin and bear it. as in “bend over, chief…”
geez, i hate MS. now if only i could be totally MS free at work, i would be happy, but of course almost everything here is Office and PC windoze. at least i have a mac on my desk, so i can run native UNIX programs occasionally and do a proper graphics job with PhotoShop, but for wordprocesing and editing, i still have no option other than to use Office like everyone else does here…
Try OpenOffice.org!!
Uh, thanks…I’ll get back to you after I convince the 250+ staff at the office to switch…right after I get this pesky street sign Romanisation boondoggle sorted out…
I’ve had this problem before too. The best I can suggest is not use “Replace All”. That’s kind of risky anyway. I’m not sure if it will fully solve the problem, though.
I do all my work in MS word 2000, and occasionally I get some unexplainable things that happen. Most of them are due to the tracked changes.
Upgrade to Word 2007, maybe.
us7.trymicrosoftoffice.com/produ … ture=en-US
has a free trail , could give it a go and see if it solves your problem.
[quote=“scomargo”]I’ve had this problem before too. The best I can suggest is not use “Replace All”. That’s kind of risky anyway. I’m not sure if it will fully solve the problem, though.
I do all my work in MS word 2000, and occasionally I get some unexplainable things that happen. Most of them are due to the tracked changes.[/quote]
Upon review, I note that I’ve consistently had the same problem in Word 2K, and without Track Changes enabled as well.