On Mon, 08 Oct 2007 13:03:00 -0400 Kenn Goutal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> dijo:
> I think it would be really helpful > if there were a "Lettercase ..." item > on the right-click menu for selected text. > > Is anyone else thinking along these lines? > Is anyone contemplating adding such a feature? > *Would* anyone undertake to add such a feature? As others have pointed out, there are more options in Format > Character > Font Effects. You can add these to your toolbar if you wish. However, there is one lettercase item that is not available, that is, you cannot do Title Case for English. Title Case in OpenOffice capitalizes the first letter of every word in the selection, where English style manuals expect certain words not to be capitalized in the titles of books and other works. I started to write a macro to do this, but then realized I couldn't do the whole thing just with Record Macro - I needed to know how to write macros manually. I don't have time to learn how to do that, so I gave up the job. If someone would like to create the macro I can help with the design. For example, the macro must start by converting the selected text to lowercase, then to title case. Then it must search for the specific words that should not be capitalized and convert them back to lowercase. The last part is where the macro needs someone with macro writing skills. The problem is that there are numerous style manuals in use in the English-speaking world, and each one defines the words that should not be capitalized somewhat differently. Therefore, the macro must use a word list that the user can edit, that is, a word list in a separate file. All I know how to do is record a macro, and you can't make a macro access a word list with just the Record Macro function. I can also help with the word list. For example, all the style manuals say not to capitalize the articles (a, an, and the). They also say not to capitalize coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet). Some style books used to advocate capitalizing longer prepositions, but both the Modern Language Association Manual of Style and the Chicago Manual of Style prefer that all prepositions be lowercased, including longer ones such as between, among, and throughout. But what if the user must use a style manual that says to capitalize the longer prepositions? That is why there must be a separate file for the word list - the user can just delete the longer prepositions from the list of words not to capitalize. I am a student of linguistics and have available to me a list of all English prepositions, which is a list of only a few hundred words. Thus, the word list would not be unreasonably large. At the end the macro must capitalize the first word (even if it is a word that otherwise would be all lowercase), and as far as I know, all the style manuals require that the last word also be capitalized, even if it is an article, coordinating conjunction, or preposition. I would find such a macro very handy. I could easily be posted on the OOo website so that everyone could use it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]