Table that won't sort correctly

[Stuart Rogers]

On 07/12/2012 8:58 AM, Steve Rickaby wrote:
> Title says it all. Material sourced from Word (groan): I suspect
> gremlin characters are messing up sort.
>
> I need to alpha-sort some 60 pp. Each entry starts with '[ref]' in
> left column, where 'ref' is the reference marker. When sorted on col
> 1, the results aren't alpha. Some sorting has taken place, but not a
> lot. There may be gremlins: in many lines, positioning the insert
> cursor at the start of the line and pressing the right arrow key does
> not advance the cursor past the '[' until the right arrow key is
> pressed again.
>
> Copying one of the offending '<invisible character>[' pairs to the
> Find dialog fails to find the character pair. However, searching for
> '^[' with wildcards on shows that the not-sorted lines do not start
> with just '[', even though that's all that is visible. Equally, lines
> that *have* sorted ok *do* start with just '['.
>
> So: I know why it's not working, but no how to fix it.
>
> Helpful ideas, anyone?
>
> FrameMaker 7.0p757 for Mac.
>

This *might* work; it's a "wash via Notepad".  It's a bit cumbersome, 
though.

1.  Copy the troublesome column to the clipboard.
2.  Open a new temporary.fm file and paste; you'll have a single-column 
table.
3.  Table > Convert to Paragraphs, row by row.
4.  Copy the paragraphs to the clipboard.
5.  Open Notepad and paste. (As extra insurance, you could use a utility 
like PureText to ensure that only ascii gets pasted.)
6.  Copy the Notepad content to the clipboard.
7.  Return to the temporary.fm file, select all, and paste.
8.  Select all; Table > Convert to Table, zero heading rows, Treat Each 
Paragraph As A Cell, Number of Columns = 1.
9.  Copy the whole column to the clipboard.
10. Return to your original document.fm select the troublesome column, 
and paste.

HTH,

-- 
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3
Toronto, ON, Canada  M1W 3K5
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

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