I have a document that contains lots of highlighted texts. All in all 5 different highlight colors. The highlighting is not done by using a style.
When printed out it is very difficult to read because the hightlight colors are quite dark. I don’t want to loose the hightlight information, but rather change the color of the highlighted sections.
Is there some possibility to for example change all red highlighted texts into light gray highlighted text?
thanks in advance, Ruud
I don’t know if it works, but go to find & replace and see if there is a possibility to identify highlighted format.
@w_whalley:
Thanks for your instant reply!
As the answer doesn’t fit into a comment field I reply here. Looking at your hints I did the following:
1 – create text - Lorem Ipsum extension
2 – selected a short text string with the cursor
3 - clicked on the highlight button and select blue8 (my color name) => highlighting was applied directly
4 - Repeated this 2 x to have 3 highlighted spots in blue8
5 – Open Find & Replace
6 – Clicked More Options
7 – all left check boxes are empty
8 - Clicked into “Search for2 and hit Delete and Backspace several times => cursor position did not move => no character in the “Search for” field
9 – Kept cursor in “Search for” and clicked Format
10 – Selected blue8 and clicked OK
11 - Clicked into “Replace with” and hit Delete and Backspace several times => cursor position did not move => no character in the “Replace with” field
12 - Kept cursor in “Replace with” and clicked Format
13– Selected red8 and clicked OK
14 – Clicked Replace All => Error message “Search key not found.” and no highlight color change.
Here is a link to my test file: Dropbox - Error
I confirm your result with your test file. Additionally when I select some of your blue8 text and look at the character formatting (Format/Character/Background) the blue8 box is not selected (surrounded by selection lines), however when I add blue8 background to another text selection and look at the character format the blue8 box is selected – and my new blue8 text background is darker than your blue8 text background. Very odd. I can find my blue8 text but not yours.
Ok, it appears that there is a difference between your blue8 and mine. By examining the unzipped content.xml file I see that your “blue8” blackground color is #ccecff (rgb 204,236,255) and my “blue8” background color is #99ccff (rgb 153,204,255). Your “blue8” color must not appear on my standard color chart. I created a custom color corresponding to your “blue8”, closed all LO instances and reopened your file. Then I could find and replace your “blue8” (my custom color) as described.
@w_whalley - thanks for looking in so many details. Sorry for not mentioning that my blue8 is not standard. I used the nice functionality of LibO and created my personal color set. Thus, your first comment is not a surprise.
Looking at your 2nd comment, my conclusion is that we have a bug. If you confirm my conclusion, I will file a bug report.
@ROSt53 - To recap: If text is highlighted using one color from the standard color table and then that color definition is changed, newly highlighted text uses the new color (although the color name is unchanged). Old highlights still use the original color. Since the old color no longer appears on the standard color table, it cannot be searched for using the Find & Replace Format search routine. There may be grounds for an enhancement request.
@w_whalley - I fully understand that if the color definition (RGB) is changed that it cannot be found. To find such a color would be an enhancement request.
But when I don’t change the color definition and cannot Find & Replace a hightlight color I would regard it as bug (in my version; your version works fine).
Once we are clear about this I will write and enhancement request and, if needed, also an bug report. Both with reference to this thread.
Thanks for your discussion!
I tried your test file and your 14-point list of commands on LO 4.0.3.3-Linux and 4.1.0.4-Windows 7 and with both redefined blue 8 color and an added color with the same RGB values. Each time I was able to find and replace the blue 8 with another color. Are you using two computers that might have a different definition of blue 8 in their starndard.soc files?
As you also tested 4.1.0.4, I installed 4.1.0.4 portable to repeat the test to see if there is a difference. Result: I get the same error in 4.1.0.4 version.
You tested in Linux and W7 all is ok. I tested in XP and have problems even in a version which we both tested (4.1.0.4)
Therefore my current conclusion is that it has to do with XP.
Now, I kindly ask if someone running XP and LibO version of 4.0.3.3. 4.0.4.2, or 4.1.0.4 could do a test and report results here.
Open the Find and Replace dialog and click the More Options button to reveal the Format button. Click in the Search for box, then click the Format button, then the Background tab. Choose the color to be found, then OK. You won’t see any change in the Search for box. Click in the Replace with box, then the Format button. Choose your new highlight color, then OK, then Replace All.
If you aren’t sure exactly which highlight color was used, then select some of the highlighted text and on the main menu click Format->Character->Background and the color will be displayed and selected in the grid of colors.
The above works for directly applied highlighting. If you want to also include highlighting applied as a character style, then in the Find and Replace dialog, More options, check the Including Styles box.
Thank you very much for this helpful description.
After submitting my question I realized I rather changed the highlight to a character style. Although this doesn’t seem possible, your solution is sufficient to solve my problem.
Applying a style isn’t too difficult: with the above method, choose for ‘find all’. All highlighted texts of the specified color are selected. Then using format>styles&formatting the character style can be applied to all of the selection.
@w_whalley - I followed your explanations step-by-step but got only the error message “Search key not found.” What could have been gone wrong?
XP/ LibO 4.0.4.2
@ROSt53 - I can think of 4 possibilities: 1) Search for box contains extra characters 2) searching for the wrong background color 3) highlighting background color was applied as a character style, but that option was not checked in the search dialog 4) LO 4.0.4.2 may be different than my 4.0.3.3. Can you succeed with a simple test case (apply hilighting directly then find it?)
Thanks. easy to follow.