FTM2014 - Find and Replace

This is not unique to FTM2014, but I haven't talked about this feature for a while.

In the Family Tree Maker Menu Bar, just below the Workspace Buttons, is the Edit Menu. This blog post will be about the Find and Replace feature. I was reminded of this while preparing for the Global Sort Children Blog Post.

Clicking on Edit, will bring up a number of options, depending on what Workspace you are in. In that last blog post, I wanted, for the blog, to Rename all of the Surnames in my file with a not so real surname. I used this feature. The good news is that it works, the bad news is that it worked.

Without getting into detail, I was reminded that I should do a blog post about how this worked and what to watch for. The Really Good News, and as I have suggested / recommended before, I had my file BACKED UP, so I didn't loose any work.

Clicking on Find and Replace, or CTRL+F (the Control Key and the letter "F" / a usual Windows command) will bring up this screen
 

Here we have some choices:

Options:

• Match Case
• Find whole words only
• Use wild cards (*?)

and asked where to search

• Facts
• Notes
• Sources
• Media
• Tasks
• Places (greyed out)

(not sure where Places is an active choice)

This is the window I forgot to really look at. At the end of the day, I made the correct choice, for this specific file, because is was a test file. I didn't remove any check marks so everything that had the surname in question was changed.

So, be careful with those default Check Marks. Remove the Check Marks you don't want to do a Find and Replace on.

Once you enter the Find character string and the Replace with character string, you will click Close and the Back Up window will be offered

 As before, I strongly recommend that you say Yes and accept the Back Up suggestion.

Review what just took place. If you immediate want to Undo it, don't forget the Windows UnDo command CTRL+Z (Control and the letter Z). I had already done more work on the file, so that command was not available, so I did File, Restore and selected that last back up.
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Copyright © 2013 by H R Worthington