Macro of the Month – February 2021 – GoogleFetch
Launches a Google search
last updated: 4/1/2024
A big welcome to new subscribers. And thanks to all those who attended my beginner Demystifying Macros class for EFA in January. It was great to see so many editors interested in learning how to use macros.
GoogleFetch
How many times during an edit do you check the spelling of a name or verify a piece of information? GoogleFetch speeds up this process. Instead of selecting the term, copying it, bringing up your browser, loading Google, and pasting the term in the search box, GoogleFetch does all this for you with the simple tap of a keyboard shortcut.
Because each country has a different Google homepage, select the macro code for your country:
Australia: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchAU.txt
Canada: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchCA.txt
India: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchIndia.txt
Ireland: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchIE.txt
New Zealand: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchNZ.txt
South Africa: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchSA.txt
United States: https://www.wordmacrotools.com/macros/G/GoogleFetchUS.txt
If you don’t see your country listed here: check the #11 Internet category of the Macro Menu catalogue of Paul Beverley’s macros. If you don’t find it, contact Paul Beverely to request one: paul@archivepub.co.uk.
A Reader Suggestion – Create a list of your custom keyboard shortcuts
This tip is for PC users only. If anyone knows a way to do this on a Mac, please let me know.
“To generate a list of your keyboard shortcuts, open Word and press CTRL P. On the print instructions under Settings, scroll down until you see Key Assignments. Press print. (When I did this recently I discovered a forgotten keyboard shortcut I had made for changing all double spaces in a document to single.)” —Pam Eidson, E before I document editing
One of the useful things about this trick is that it also prints a description of what the macro does, if that information is provided in the macro.
Paul Beverley’s Macro Library
To make navigating his library of 800 macros easier, Paul has broken his Macros for Editors book into PDFs that you can access directly on his website. You can find them here under the second Macros for Editors header. The most useful of these is the Macro Menu, which provides an index to all the macros.
The great thing about this menu is that when you click on a macro name, it opens a webpage containing the macro text ready to be copied and installed into Word. That’s much faster than having to locate it in the TheMacrosAll file. The Macro Menu is a PDF, so you can download it. The links will still work.
Also, clicking on the description of a macro will open another PDF that provides an explanation of how the macro works. Note that this PDF contains descriptions of all the macros for a given macro category (such as comments, navigation, speed editing). To find the description of the macro you are interested in, do a search.
Upcoming Training
I will be giving an intermediate webinar on March 11 looking at how to incorporate macros into your editing process. Among the many macros that will be covered are FRedit and MultiSwitch, two powerful find and replace macros. (This class assumes you know how to install macros.) More information is available here.
As always, I would love to hear from you. Tell me what your current favorite macro is or a tip or trick you’ve discovered.
Be safe and well,
Jennifer