I want to globally find and replace several words and phrases in each Sub Document of a Master Document. For example, suppose I want to rename one character in my book. Each of 40 chapters is a separate Sub-Document within the Master Document. Doing a search and replace in each chapter (one-by-one) would be very tedious. Also, I have other words I need to replace globally. Does LibreOffice have a built-in function to do this, or are there any extensions or scripts available? I’ve searched the forums and documentation, but haven’t found anything yet.
There is no way of doing what you desire. A master document contains links to separate sub-documents. When you open a master document, it will ask you if you wish to update those links. This action pulls in a copy of each sub-document. You can click on a sub-document link and directly open it for editing, however that is a separate matter.
It is possible to unprotect the sub-documents which are treated as sections (Format > Sections… > Write protection > uncheck Protected, again though this merely allows you to work on a copy of each sub-document. If you need to apply the same changes to each chapter, you could record them in a macro and run that in each sub-document. This is one area where the master / sub-document facility is still a work in progress.
@oweng - I just hope that our devs can make search and replace possible by opening only the master. I feel this is a very much needed feature. Why can’t we clone our devs!