To Collapse a Text

To ‘Collapse’ a text into alphabetical order using Word 2003

1. Make sure it is a ‘clean’ text – i.e. not directly copied from the internet (see Troubleshooting below*)

2. Edit > Replace

Type a space in the ‘Find what’ box

Type ^p in the ‘Replace with’ box (NB: a lower case p)

Click on ‘Replace All’

This should put the text into a long thin line.

3. Table > Sort > OK (ignore other options!)

This should sort it alphabetically.

4. Edit > Find and Replace

Type ^p in the ‘Find what’ box

Type a space in the ‘Replace with’ box

Click on ‘Replace All’

This should put it back into a paragraph.

5. You can use Format > Change case to put it all in lower case.

Use Find and Replace to remove full stops, commas etc.

Save with a new filename

You can carry out the same process using the version of Word bundled with Vista, it’s just that the menus are in different places!

Troubleshooting

Most likely causes of it not working are:

·  At stage 4. you left a space in the ‘Find what’ box just next to the ^p. Spaces are small and invisible, so just check.

·  You have inadvertently selected a part of the document somewhere and the program is applying your instructions just to that one bit. Make sure none of your text is selected, or that ALL of it is.

·  Some texts, when copied from a website, bring with them ‘embedded’ information which can prevent this technique working. So, when copying texts from the internet, note this little icon which appears when you Paste into Word: If you click on it, you will see these options:

Select ‘Keep Text Only’ and you shouldn’t have any problems.

If problems persist, paste your text into Notepad (find it in All Programs > Accessories > Notepad) rather than Word. Then copy it from Notepad into Word and it will be fine. (Notepad seems to act like a sieve and removes unwanted items.)