Do you use WikiTree? Do you have an ‘easy button’ to help you quickly add information to a profile for an ancestor? As I’m learning more about WikiTree, I want such a button.

I’ve figured out that I can use RootsMagic’s narrative report as my ‘easy button’. However, the Microsoft Word document needs some TLC to make it easier to copy/paste the biography and sources into a WikiTree profile.

First the superscripts for the endnotes need converted to brackets. Fortunately, I found directions on how to do this using the REPLACE feature on MS Word on StackExchange.

While the directions are relatively easy to follow, they use features that I’ve never used before. Clicking MORE on the FIND and REPLACE window reveals some additional features. Using the FORMAT button on the replace window, it is possible to ‘find’ based on the formatting.

Pulling down the FORMAT button reveals a list of choices, including FONT.

Clicking on FONT opens a window that allows one to select the type of formatting to ‘FIND’. For this purpose, I want to ‘find’ the superscripts. Thus, I put a check mark by SUPERSCRIPT.

When OK is clicked, the FIND and REPLACE window now shows ‘Superscript’ as the format the computer will find.

Telling the computer what to replace the superscript with is a multi-step process. The first step is to input the text to use for the replacement. For my purposes, I want to replace the superscripted numbers with those same numbers in brackets. This is accomplished by using [^&]. Since I want a space after the period and prior to the bracketed numbers, I’m including that space. Thus, I type the [^&] in the ‘replace with’ blank on the Find and Replace window.

The next step is to make sure the numbers are not superscripted or subscripted. Thus, the FORMAT FONT window is used to make sure the squares in front of ‘superscript’ and ‘subscript’ are blank. This is accomplished by double clicking on the box by Superscript.

Thus, the REPLACE window now indicates that the replacement text is NOT Superscript/Subscript.

The next step is to set the STYLE to normal. To do this, the FORMAT window is used, but instead of picking FONT, STYLE is selected from the menu.

This opens a small window to select the STYLE for the text.

Scrolling down the ‘REPLACE WITH STYLE’ list, I select NORMAL.

Clicking OK adds the Style: Normal under the Replace with box.

Now, I’m ready to watch the Find and Replace magic at work. Below is an image of a report with the ‘Find and Replace’ window ready to do its work.

Below is the report after clicking on REPLACE ALL.

Before copying and pasting the report into WikiTree, there is one other change that I want to make to the file. While the report appears to have some blank space between each endnote, that spacing disappears when copied/pasted into WikiTree. Since I like that ‘white space’, I want to modify the file so that there is ‘white space’ when copied/pasted. The easiest way I know of doing this is to highlight the endnotes and then replace the paragraph mark with two paragraph marks.

Thus, I use the SPECIAL button on the Find and Replace window.

Clicking on SPECIAL reveals a menu that includes the Paragraph Mark along with other special characters.

After adding one paragraph mark to the ‘FIND WHAT’ box and two paragraph marks to the ‘REPLACE WITH’ box, the Find and Replace window looks as follows:

Clicking on REPLACE ALL changes the spacing for the highlighted text. When the FIND AND REPLACE function is finished with the highlighted text, it will ask whether to do the rest of the file. Since the biography portion of the file copies into WikiTree without needing extra space, I answer that question NO.

These simple find/replace functions create a file that can be copied and pasted into the Biography portion of a WikiTree profile.