Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

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Sean Godley
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Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2016 6:10 am

Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

Unread post by Sean Godley »

Hi all,

I am currently making some updates to my manuals and one of the things I am changing is removing the underlines from links. I added these underlines manually each time I created a link, and there are now thousands of them. Is there a way to use 'styles' in order to change them all in one go, without having to go through manually and change them one at a time?

Thanks,

Sean
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Tim Green
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Re: Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Sean,

If you added the formatting manually there's no way to remove it with styles, since it's not under the control of a style. What you can do, however, is do a global search and replace on the XML code of your topic files with an external program that can do multi-file search and replace, like the excellent free Notepad++.

Your project must be saved in the uncompressed HMXP format so that you can access the individual files. You can save to HMXP with Save As... in the File menu. Choose an empty folder to save in (you can add other files and folders to it later if necessary, for example for your images etc).

First you need to create "before" and "after" examples of what you need to do in the HM editor, then look in the XML Source view (tab below the main editor window) to see the XML code you need to find and replace. Then use the multi-file search and replace tool on the topic files in the /Topics sub-folder in your project folder to make the changes.

IMPORTANT: Always make a backup before doing this! Automated global changes are always a little bit risky. ;-)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Sean Godley
Posts: 92
Joined: Sun Apr 24, 2016 6:10 am

Re: Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

Unread post by Sean Godley »

Great - thanks Tim, I will give that a try.

Sean
Dave Gehman
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Re: Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Tim Green wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 4:14 pm What you can do... is do a global search and replace on the XML code of your topic files with an external program that can do multi-file search and replace, like the excellent free Notepad++.

Your project must be saved in the uncompressed HMXP format so that you can access the individual files....

IMPORTANT: Always make a backup before doing this! Automated global changes are always a little bit risky. ;-)
I have to do the XML search and replace to change things in embedded HTML code. Our project is already saved as an HMXP file.

Would saving to a new, compressed H+M (HMXZ) file serve as a backup?

Or is it possible to do a Save As and just name the saved-as file, the backup, "[my file name]BackUp.HMXP"
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Tim Green
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Re: Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi Dave,

The easiest thing to do is to make a complete copy of your project folder in Windows Explorer. Save as... and choosing a new empty folder will also work, but it won't copy any additional material, like images, that you may have added to your project folder in the meantime. :)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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Dave Gehman
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Re: Removing All Underlines from Underlined Text

Unread post by Dave Gehman »

Thanks - complete copy of the project folder is one of the actions I took after saving as compressed HM - one of my more useful weekend actions :)
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