Getting rid of residual citation markers

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joseph_anton
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Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by joseph_anton »

Due to the issue with Mellel 4.01 and Bookends, all of the citations in my project were corrupted. I did a global search and replace to blank out all my citations so that I could start over from scratch. Having done so, I notice a small irregularity: where the citations were before, the surrounding text is now highlighted in blue. I can't see any obvious way to remove these traces of the previous citations so that I can start over. Any advice on this topic would be much appreciated.
Icelander
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by Icelander »

joseph_anton wrote: Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:12 pm I can't see any obvious way to remove these traces of the previous citations so that I can start over. Any advice on this topic would be much appreciated.
Did you try to revert to an older version via File > Revert To > Browse All Versions…?

You could also just select the highlighted text and paste it again as Plain Text. That should remove all color attributes.

Can't you search for the highlighted blue text and replace it with non-highlighted text? Try to

1. select a part of the highlighted blue text, then
2. do Copy Character Attributes from the Edit menu, then
3. open Find & Replace and insert 'Anything'
4. Select the 'Anything' icon in the Find box and Paste Character Attributes from the Edit menu
5. Insert 'Anything' with no attributes in the Replace box

I guess this should, at least in theory, remove the color.
joseph_anton
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by joseph_anton »

Thanks for the helpful response!

Perhaps because I have the Mellel store bought version rather than the App Store one, "Browse All Versions" doesn't show up as an option for me under "Revert," so I wasn't able to get back to an earlier version.

I tried the suggestion regarding copying character attributes. Unfortunately, when I select the "Anything" icon under Find & Replace, the "Paste Character Attributes" becomes grayed out.

It is of course possible to manually remove each entry, but it would be great to have a global way of doing so.
Icelander
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by Icelander »

Hi Joseph,

My previous suggestion was based on marker colors, but now, after I inserted real temporary citations from Bookends, I get the same result as you. Paste Character Attributes is indeed grayed out.
joseph_anton wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 11:22 am"Browse All Versions" doesn't show up as an option for me under "Revert," so I wasn't able to get back to an earlier version.
Regarding "Browse All Versions", by me this feature doesn't seem to become active until I save a document. Unsaved Mellel document snippets that I have been working on for a few days, have "Browse All Versions" grayed out. These are my settings: Automatic save is off; instead I use "System Standard (Lion or better) in Preferences > Open & Save > Automatic save.
I just mention this because, interestingly enough, Nisus doesn't make this distinction between saved and unsaved documents.

Regarding the blue citation color: it seems to be neither a normal background color nor a normal text attribute. At least the Character Attributes pane didn't allow me to meddle with the color in one way or another.

What happens when you search again for 'Citation'? Are the surrounding blue text passages found? Or are they not recognized anymore when you search?
joseph_anton
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by joseph_anton »

Many thanks for trying to reproduce this issue, Icelander. It's good to know that it's not specific to me or my set-up.

If I search for citations now, it turns up no results (neither the residual citation markers nor the new validated citations I have inserted recently are picked up).

Thanks for the information the options for auto-save. Incidentally, one feature I'd like to see added to Mellel is more depth in the backups, i.e. that at least one previous version would be retained rather than having the old backup automatically overwritten by the new one.
Icelander
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by Icelander »

joseph_anton wrote: Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:31 pm Many thanks for trying to reproduce this issue
Let's wait and see what Avner has to say. I haven't seen him here for a while, but I suppose he'll be back soon.
Icelander
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by Icelander »

Here is something else you should try. Export the document as rtf and open it in another application. This will work as laundry and remove all traces of the inauspicious blue color.

I just tried this in LibreOffice and Nisus Writer Pro. The blue color went away. All the formatting was retained, including markers, so it was easy to import back to Mellel.

I'm pretty sure this will resolve the problem.
joseph_anton
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by joseph_anton »

That's a much appreciated suggestion, thank you. I have so much Mellel specific content in my document that I doubt that it would all survive the process of exporting and re-importing. It is of course possible to delete the affected areas individually and re-insert the text manually, which is what I'll probably do.
DavidH
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by DavidH »

Dear Joseph,

First, have you put in a support request on this? If the problem turns in any deep way on the 4.0.1 bug and how it was fixed, they’ll be the ones who can help.

Second, how did you formulate your search and replace? The reason I ask is that a Mellel citation isn’t a bit of text surrounded by special identifying characters, as is the case with most word processors that work with reference managers. Nor is it a bit of text with special character attributes, a special color and/or a specially colored background. (The color you see is strictly for onscreen display.) It’s a “citation object,” a specially marked location in the document that starts out “holding” associated text. Although the whole object can be selected and deleted, it’s also possible to delete the text without deleting the underlying object. (One way this can happen is if you click into the text of a citation before hitting delete.) This sort of partial removal leaves a purple smudge onscreen and could result in unwanted bibliography entries after scanning.

What did get rid of the citation objects in my tests— I’d try this on a copy of your document — is to run the following Search and Replace:

(a) In the Find box, use the downward pointing arrow at the left hand end to select “Citation” from the popup menu. That should give you a Find field containing a boxy symbol with a quotation mark inside it and nothing else.
(b) In the Replace box, click once in the main part of the box. I’d put a space in there and select it and delete it to make sure I end up replacing citations with nothing at all.

Then hit Replace All.

This won’t give you a completely clean slate, since deleted citations still appear in the “Citations in document” list in the Bibliography palette. (I take it they set things up this way to make it easier to restore deleted citations without going all the way back to Bookends.)
joseph_anton
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Re: Getting rid of residual citation markers

Post by joseph_anton »

Thanks DavidH - I actually haven't submitted a support ticket on this one. Your comments are very helpful and much appreciated.

I did in fact replace the citations that had become corrupted using the Find & Replace approach you mention in your post (i.e. using the "Citation" placeholder in the advanced Find options) but I think I left the Replace field blank, rather than inserting a space as you suggest. Incidentally, this approach managed to remove all citations from the Bibliography palette.

At this point I have begun to manually reconstruct the citations I had built up before the Mellel 4.01 issue, so I'll probably just let it go (as I doubt there is going to be any way of removing the residual citation markers only and not the new valid citations).
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