Macro of the Month – August 2022 – AbbrSwap

Swaps the name of an organization (or term) and its abbreviation when one is in parentheses

Are you faced with lots of abbreviations and acronyms? AbbrSwap (don’t try to say that out loud) will help you correct instances where the author places the spelled-out form in parentheses. This month also features a tip on how to create a customized Ribbon tab in Word for running lesser-used macros—or even your most-used commands.

AbbrSwap 

Authors sometimes place the full name of an organization or term in parentheses after its abbreviation or acronym, and the style guidelines require the opposite. Swapping out the location of the two requires a bit of effort, particularly to correctly apply the parentheses. AbbrSwap does all this work for you with just the stroke of your keyboard shortcut.
 
How it works: When you come across an abbreviation or acronym that needs to be in parentheses with the full form in front, place the cursor in the abbreviation and run AbbrSwap. It swaps the location of the two, including correctly placing the parentheses.

Here’s an example:
original: You can drop off your old or broken television at CHaRM (the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials).

after running AbbrSwap: You can drop off your old or broken television at the Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM).

If the style you are following requires the opposite treatment, AbbrSwap can handle that too. Just place the cursor in the first word of the term or organization name—in the above example that would be “the”—and run the macro.

When to use it: Run AbbrSwap while you are editing whenever you run across an acronym or abbreviation in the wrong location in relation to its full form. 

Why it’s useful: Swapping the location of the two requires a fair bit of typing and mousing. Running AbbrSwap not only speeds up this edit; it also exerts less effort on your hands and wrists (because it bundles all those steps into a single keyboard shortcut). 

Download the code: www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/A/AbbrSwap

Tip – Create a custom ribbon

Editors frequently use Word’s Home tab to apply font and style treatments and the Review tab to access commands for comments and Track Changes. Did you know that you can add a new tab to your Ribbon and add whatever commands you want? I have one called Macros from which I launch lesser-used macros and the Macro dialogue box and Visual Basic. You can similarly customize what appears on your Quick Access Toolbar.

Generally, to be most efficient using macros, you need to run them using a keyboard shortcut. However, for those macros you run only once during a project, or less frequently, they aren’t essential. The document analysis macros, such as ProperNounAlyse and CitationAlyse, are one example of macros that don’t require a shortcut to be efficient as you run them one time at the beginning of a project. You can easily launch these macros from the Macro dialogue box, or from a customized tab in the Ribbon. 

An example of a customized Ribbon tab on a Mac called Macros (the results are similar on a PC). I run these macros at most once per project and find it easier to run them from this tab. You can also create a custom Ribbon tab to house your most-used commands, such as ones dealing with comments, tracking, fonts, and styles.
 

An example of the Quick Access Toolbar (in the red box) on a PC. I’ve added icons to open the Macro dialogue box and the Visual Basic window. The QAT is arguably more convenient on the PC as it can be placed under the Ribbon; on a Mac, it is located above the Ribbon, and the icons are rendered in white, decreasing their legibility.

Want to learn how to create a custom tab and customize the Quick Access Toolbar? Check out these YouTube videos:
PC: youtu.be/XU19se-FT0I
Mac: youtu.be/i6X70V6egY0

Upcoming Training

If learning to use macros is on your to-do list, join me on September 21 at noon ET for the How to Boost Your Editing Speed and Accuracy with Macros at the 2002 ACES Accelerate online conference. This session is geared to beginners. Paul Beverley will be joining me to answer your questions. Note that the Q&A and chat will be available only if you attend the live session.

Information and registration: https://aceseditors.org/conference/aces-2022-virtual


Do you have a macro tip for readers? Or a macro you think should be featured in the newsletter? Reply to this email and let me know.
 
Regards,
Jennifer