How to select content of all footnotes at once?

[dajare]

I am trying to select all footnotes to format them (select font) in a single pass. At the moment, when I do “CTRL-A”, only the content of the current note is selected, and nothing I can do seems to select them all at once. (I hate to say, in MS Word this is trivial, of course.)

(Background: I am editing in LO Writer someone else’s DOCX file, created in MS Word. Much of the formatting is quirky as a result.)

I have seen the helpful answer by @manj_k on an earlier “select all footnotes” question. I have used the “Alternative search/replace” extension, and made an attempt to do this, but using this extension, I cannot work out how to get all content of footnotes, and how to set the font for replacing.

Sorry to be dim. Can someone give me some help with this? I’m using Lubuntu at the moment, and although I can boot to Win7 on this machine and use MS Word, I would much rather find a solution in *buntu and LO Writer! Thanks for any help with this.

[ROSt53]

@dajare - I would use the styles window and change the font and expect to get an automatic update of all footnotes. The footnote style is typically located under Default / Captions / Footnote.

[dajare]

Thanks for this: actually, that was what I tried first. I played a little more with it now, and it seems that (because this is a DOCX file?) some aspects of the “Style” do not automatically update. It sees as if there is a “hidden” character or something odd (not revealed when toggle “show non-printing characters”. So – good to keep this in mind, but not quite as effective for me as the technique using the “Alternative search/replace” extension that @manj_k described.

[manj_k]

@dajare: “I have seen the helpful answer by @manj_k on an earlier “select all footnotes” question. I have used the “Alternative search/replace” extension, and made an attempt to do this, but using this extension, I cannot work out how to get all content of footnotes, and how to set the font for replacing.”

To get all content of footnotes (select/highlight):

You may try "Properties → Paragraph style → Select style …

→ “Find All” (see comments)

Then you can close the “Alternative Find & Replace” dialog,

and

• clear direct formatting
  
• apply styles
  
• etc.

[dajare]

Ah! That’s how you do it! One more step before “Then you can close…” = “→ Find All” (and then close dialog). Brilliant. Thank you - I would never have figured that out.

[manj_k]

@dajare - Yes, “Find All” before closing the dialog;

I’m sorry for the sloppy answer (now adapted, thanks)

[Winfried1]

I’m using LibreOffice 4.2.0.4 on Windows: Is there no way to change the font used by all footnotes using LibreOffice as-is, or must we download and install that “Alternative search/replace” extension?

Found it:

1. Format > Styles and Formatting
2. Right-click on “Footnote” > Modify
3. Click on “Font” tab Change font: This change will apply to all existing footnotes.

[dajare]

@Winfried1 - glad you found it: that is essentially ROSt52’s solution in the other answer in this Q&A.