Find & Replace : Do it Intelligently!
I use a lot of legal documents where all I have to do is to find and replace certain textual matter. I have been using microsoft word’s find and replace function.
Though it does the job, I have always felt the need for a more powerful and better way of doing things. For example, I should have the ability to see what is there and what is getting replaced. I should have the ability to do it file after file in a complete folder. And, I should be able to do it as a batch process if required.
Why do I need this? This is required simply because, most of the legal documents have similar structure and wordings. All I have to do is to change the names sometimes. Or, change a particular clause or change the amount paid for something in the contract. Then, I need to repeat it in some 20 to 25 different similar contracts at the same time.
That is when I came across the text replace software tool . This looks very good for what I have in mind.
It allows me to preview while replace is happening. I will get a chance to see the file while it is getting executed. it also highlights the text which will get replaced so that I know what is going to happen and it need not be one mindless find and replace. It also allows approve or reject every single replacement so that I can exercise control in terms of the replacement being done. It allows any type of expression to be found and replaced as long as it is naturally used in the language so that it can replace strings in document easily.
The good thing is that I can filter by size of the document or even by the date of the document. I can even filter it by the minute and seconds if I want to. If I don’t want some files to be included into the replacement domain, I can exclude them. This is very useful since there are always exceptions to what I want to do as a rule.
This will be very useful in legal profession. It will also be very useful in any place where document management is required where similar documents are there and changing one or two expressions means the creation of a whole new document.