With traditional typing, making a change like this must count as the most boring of all possible jobs, but with word processing it could not be simpler. In the last example all you would do would be to switch to command mode and type:
CHANGE disk disc RETURN
and the word would be changed automatically throughout the whole text. Try a few examples for yourself.
Notice how the CHANGE command copies the case of the word to be changed. So with the command above, for example, 'DISK' would be changed to 'DISC' and 'Disk' into 'Disc'.
Naturally you can use this not only to correct spelling but to change the terminology itself. For example, if you are writing about antiques and mention 'grandfather clocks', you may find your editor insisting that 'long-case clocks' is the correct horological term. No problem:
CHANGE grandfather long-case RETURN
and again 'Grandfather' will become 'Long-case' too.
The way in which VIEW copies the case of the original can be very useful, but it can also prevent you from altering the case if you want to. For example you may be producing a report about an antibiotic called 'erythromycin'. You have nearly finished when you find that this is a proprietary name, and should be written 'Erythromycin'.
To make a correction like this you need to switch off VIEW's facility to copy the case of the original. This facility is known as 'folding', and you can switch it off by using the command FOLD (in command mode) with the number 0 after it:
FOLD 0 RETURN
After this you can issue the instruction:
CHANGE erythromycin Erythromycin RETURN
and the change will be made. To turn folding on again, replace the 0 with a 1 - and if you forget whether folding is on or off, just type
FOLD RETURN
and VIEW will tell you.
In cases like this you should use the REPLACE command instead of CHANGE. It allows you to make a separate decision on each occurrence of the word. The command is given in much the same way as CHANGE:
REPLACE Green Stepehnson RETURN
The system switches to text mode and the first occurrence of 'Green' is signalled by the cursor being placed on the first letter. If you do not want that word replaced, press N. If you want it replaced press Y. VIEW then moves on to the next occurrence of the word, until you have made your decision on them all.
Folding works with REPLACE in the same way as it does with CHANGE.
SEARCH Green RETURN
The system changes to text mode and the cursor rests on the first occurrence of the word named. To find the next press NEXT MATCH ( CTRL f1 ).
So what happens when you search for a word which you know is there, but the SEARCH command cannot find it? Perhaps you have mistyped it? - in which case the SEARCH command will never find it. Here again VIEW comes to the rescue with the 'wild search' facility.
All you have to do is to operate the search while substituting a '?' for each character which may be wrong. So if you want to find 'Erythromycin' but are not sure how it is spelt, you will find it quite quickly if you ask for 'Erythro?????'.
With more common words it will of course find other words of similar spelling, but you can quickly move on using NEXT MATCH.
Even RETURN and TAB can be specified in your searches, using the vertical bar and the tilde (~) respectively. Consult the Guide for more detail on this.
CHANGE disk disc 1 2 RETURN
This will change 'disk' to 'disc' between the markers only.
The method is to enclose the phrases within slashes, like this:
CHANGE/Read Only Memory/Random Access Memory/ RETURN
The space or slash in CHANGE and similar commands is known as a 'delimiter' since its function is to show where one thing ends and another begins. The first character after CHANGE indicates to VIEW which delimiter is being used, and it must then be used consistently through the command.