Can I change a p with a class to a h?

[ChoccieMuffin]

I have some legacy stuff I'd like to tidy up, that for some reason has what ought to be headings (a very low heading like h6) but they've been formatted as a p with a class.

Is there any moderately painless way to do a global change from paragraphs with p.pHeading8 to h6?

I fear the answer is going to be a distinctive NO, but there's no harm in asking... (Please can someone say there's a YES answer possible...)

Thanks, with crossed fingers

CM

[kwag_myers]

If the paragraph has a specific class, you can use the Find and Replace feature on the Home tab:

1. Open a topic containing the paragraph style in the Text Editor.
2. Copy the paragraph tag and paste into the Find what text field. Example: <p.pHeading8>
3. Type <h6> in the Replace with text box.
4. In the Options section, set the Find in menu to (whole project) and click the Find in source code check box.
5. (this next part is from memory, and it's Monday morning, so...) Click Replace All for the open topic, then Start to open the remaining topics which contain the syntax.

I can't remember if you have to click Replace All for each topic, but Flare looks for and opens each topic containing the syntax.

[NorthEast]

Don't try that at home!

It's not as simple as just replacing <p class="pHeading8"> with <h6>.

If you just do that, your topics will have invalid code, since you also need to change the corresponding closing tag </p> to </h6>.
And unfortunately, you can't just do a simple replace all for the </p> tags (unless you want a bigger mess).

Myself, I use FAR HTML for jobs like this, which I find relatively painless.

Although Flare does support regular expressions, I'm not sure they could be used in this scenario. From discussions on these forums, I understand that they can be only used for find and not replace (e.g. so you can't use back-references).

[SteveS]

You could set the heading level for the style to heading level 6.

It won't tidy up the code, but if you're trying to get it to behave as a heading could save a bit of work.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Cheers Dave, that's exactly why I asked the question as I knew already that Kwag's suggestion would break stuff.

Now to investigate FAR...

[NorthEast]

Now to investigate FAR...

You can find FAR here: http://www.helpwaregroup.com/products/far

It's not free, but I'm fairly sure the download has a long-ish trial period.

I find it quite easy - your example above would take about 2 minutes to set up.

[Nita Beck]

I second (or is it third) the nomination of FAR HTML. Another particularly useful feature is that one can save find-and-replace strings in a file. Say I import a project from RoboHelp. I can do a lot of the clean up using FAR, and save the strings in a file. Then, many months later, perhaps I import another project from RoboHelp. I can clean that project up even faster because I can re-use the strings in the saved files. FAR is SUCH a timesaver.

If you do use FAR, two pieces of advice:
-- Make a backup of your Flare project, as you can do serious damage to it. I tend to make multiple backups as I go.
-- Work in FAR only when the Flare project is closed. Flare will complain mightily if you're messing with its files while the project is open.

[ChoccieMuffin]

Yup, good program, and used it today. Wouldn't it be nice if Flare's find and replace could do just a tenth of what FAR's can.

[Thomas Tregner]

Would a plug-in to change element tags be useful?

[Nita Beck]

Thomas, speaking only for myself, such a plug-in would be golden!

[SteveS]

Given the number of topics rerlating to find and replace I am sure there are a swag of people who would find such a plugin invaluable