LO Writer (Linux): Way to do text search in set of documents?

users
#21

Quick question, Felmon, do you have to do this for all mails from this
list, both Tom's and mine, or just for mails like the ones from Tom?

I would have to look more deeply into the configuration of alpine to check settings but I'll note that

a) replies to all emails from this list require my manual tender loving care, all of them whether from Tom or from you.

b) on another list I get an option to reply to the poster or reply to the list.

I'll dig later to see what the difference is in the configuration - I have separate configuration files. I do recall that once it used to work the same on both lists. (nonetheless in the meantime I may have fiddled with the settings also.)

F.

#22

I need to be 'in' LO Writer when the text is found, so that I can look
around the context.

#23

I.e. I want to use the LO Writer 'Find' function, but spanning more
than one file.
  (There would be likely to be several instances of the 'find'
text in each file.)

The simplest way would presumably be to write an app that would create
a temporary composite document from a list, and do the Find through
that.
  
I had been wondering if there was an LO Writer function that would
continue a Find over a given list of files, but I guess not.

#24

​I don't know if that's what you meant, but it might be possible to achieve
this through a macro inside LibreOffice.

#25

That sounds interesting!.

Actually, many years ago I was using a word processor which (like some
assembler languages) accepted an 'include <file>' control.

Ideally I would have a master file just containing, e.g.

  %include <filename-A>
  %include <filename-B>
    etc...
    
- which I would then give to Writer, which would then pull in the
contents of those files to produce the composite document I need.

#26

Hi :slight_smile:
I guess that would be another way of doing it. A bit of a shame after
there have been so many different coding ways of doing it!

Chapter 13 "Working with Master Documents" might help!
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Documentation/Publications#LibreOffice_Writer_Guide

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#27

Thanks for the pointer, Tom!

(At first glance it looks somewhat tedious, but it might do the trick.)

#28

Hi :slight_smile:
I think i'd first try just dragging a couple of the relevant files into an
empty document and see if that is enough to do what you need. I thought
that was all the Master Documents did but i guess there is a lot more to it!
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#29

​One of the "great" feature of master documents is overriding styles from
sub documents. With that you can have for example a whole book written with
a set of files, and different master documents that will format it for
printing, pdf, multi-column, etc...

(not that this is relevant at all for OP's problem, just a head up!)​

#30

By what means are you thinking, Tom?!

#31

Hi :slight_smile:
It might be easier to just start figuring out Master Documents! At least
there is documentation for it!

If you create a new document or open an existing one can you still see the
file-browser? (ie so that you can still see the icons of various different
files?) If you can see the files then try dragging one of those files into
the document you have opened. LibreOffice will create a new "section" for
the extra document.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#32

Hi :slight_smile:
It might be easier to just start figuring out Master Documents! At least
there is documentation for it!

If you create a new document or open an existing one can you still see the
file-browser? (ie so that you can still see the icons of various different
files?) If you can see the files then try dragging one of those files into
the document you have opened. LibreOffice will create a new "section" for
the extra document.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I may have lost the point of the thread but if one is going to these lengths, why not simply _insert_ the other documents into one and do one's search?

'insert-->file-->...'

what is the drawback to this?

F.

#33

Hi :slight_smile:
+1
same thing i was suggesting but a slightly different process.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#34

Whether using Tom's suggestion of drag-'n-drop or yours to 'Insert file',
both would bee tedious when several files are often involved, but would
be
usable in the occasional general case.

The particular requirement is for a routine search through the same
set of files, with the requirement that the contents are the latest
version
in each case, so for convenience it needs to be a pre-defined list.

It may be that the Master Document facility will allow me to have a
master
document that permanently lists that set of files, and brings their
current
contents in dynamically whenever the master document is opened.
  Will look further into that; I'm hoping that the contents of each file
are
not frozen at the time when they are first inserted into the master.

  Thanks to all for pointing out so many options! Much appreciated...

#35

There could be a feature request. In the existing find and replace dialogue to have an option "All open documents".
You need only have the documents opened in LO and working on multiple documents you can search and replace them as one.
Steve

#36

There could be a feature request. In the existing find and replace
dialogue to have an option "All open documents".

  Mmm. Will take a look at how to make such a request.

You need only have the documents opened in LO and working on multiple
documents you can search and replace them as one.

  Well, if, say, there are 10 documents in the list to be searched, how
would one open all 10 conveniently?

#37

Hi :slight_smile:
Hmm, sadly Writer doesn't seem to do quite the same thing as GEdit.

With GEdit i could;
1. select all 10 files,
2. right-click to open in GEdit,
3. do the search in any of the documents
4. Ctrl z to close that document and arrive in the next automatically
5. when i open the find dialogue it already has the search criteria i used
in the last document

Sadly with Writer i'd have to copy&paste the criteria each time. I guess
that's another argument in favour of tabbed UI
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#38

Tom, I have an idea that there is a find/copy/paste add-on for LO which
works on multiple files. I used it when I was using LO for my writing
(I now use Scrivener for books and such). I could change the name of a
character throughout a book with a simple command.

James

#39

Yes, I remember something like that as well, but I do not remember what it was or what version of LO it was used with.

That would be real handy for book authors and editors.

Piers Anthony, a highly regarded SciFi and Fantasy writer, used Fedora and LO for writing his books. He is in his mid 70's now so he has scaled back to 1 or 2 books per year, instead of 3 or more. He has created macros to help him do the work he needs and uses a different keyboard layout than the standard QWERTY keyboard. In one of his Author's Notes, he stated that he needed a package that worked with his type of keyboard and had the ability to create/use the types of macros he needs for making his writing easier. He seems to be a big "fan" of having multiple documents open at the same time and editing across those documents.

SO, you should be able to find the extension needed for your cross-document editing.

#40

Hi :slight_smile:
Hmm, sadly Writer doesn't seem to do quite the same thing as GEdit.

With GEdit i could;
1. select all 10 files,
2. right-click to open in GEdit,
3. do the search in any of the documents
4. Ctrl z to close that document and arrive in the next automatically
5. when i open the find dialogue it already has the search criteria i used
in the last document

Sadly with Writer i'd have to copy&paste the criteria each time. I guess
that's another argument in favour of tabbed UI
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

I am sure I'm not quite following what is ultimately wanted but about opening multiple copies, but suppose I have a directory containing the desired files, say, 1.doc, 2.doc, Another.doc; is there a verbot against going into the directory and doing

soffice *.doc

at the commandline? or does this not work?

but pardon and ignore me if I'm way off-target.

F.