Tools in Writer

Tools

Use the navigation pane in Writer to directly go to a particular page or a heading, or bookmarks without having to scroll through the entire document. You can navigate throughout your document and manage the sections in a much easier way. When you click on a heading or bookmark in the navigation pane, your cursor will jump directly to that specific part of the document.
To use document navigation,
  1. Click More > Tools tab.
  2. Under the Navigation header, click Document Navigation.



  3. The Document navigation panel will open. You can do the following using the navigation panel.
    • Navigate through different headings, bookmarks, or fields that are available in your document. Make sure you have applied heading styles or bookmarks in your document to browse through the navigation page.
    • Drag and drop the headings and subheadings. The headers and the text in your document will also be moved when you drag and drop these headings.
    • Click the More options near any heading inside the panel, to add a new Heading before or after any heading, to add a new subheading, promote and demote any heading as required.
Notes
  • You can expand or collapse sub-headings under main headings inside the navigation pane. To show or hide the subheadings under a heading, you can click the arrow next to the heading.
  • The navigation pane does not show the headings that you have applied inside tables or text boxes, or headers/footers.

View all images in the document

If you want to navigate through or have a preview of only images used in the document, you can use this feature.

To view all images in the document,

  1. Click More > Tools tab.
  2. Under the Navigation header, click View All Images. This will open a preview of all the images in the document. You can download or edit each image while you preview.

Editing options

Enable focus typing, typewriter sound, and use the transliteration feature under the editing options of the Tools tab in Writer.

Focus typing

This helps you to focus on the current paragraph you type in your document.

To enable focus typing,

  1. Click More > Tools tab.
  2. Under Editing header, turn on the Focus Typing button. Now your entire document will look blurred. You can click on the paragraph you want to edit so that it gets highlighted and gives a better focus on the content. Once editing is done, you can disable the focus typing mode.

Turn on typewriter sound

You have an option to switch on typewriter sounds in Writer. Turn on the sound and start typing.

  1. Click More > Tools tab.
  2. Under the Editing Header, enable the Typewriter Sound button.

Using transliteration

Transliteration is a typing service in Writer, that lets you type in any language with an English keyboard. The characters typed will be converted to a similar pronunciation of the target language. For example, in Tamil transliteration, you can type “thamizh” to get “தமிழ்”. Spell the words phonetically (write exactly the way it sounds) to get the desired output. To enable transliteration,

  1. Click More > Tools tab.
  2. Under the Editing header, turn on the Transliteration service.
  3. Now choose the required language in the pop-up that follows. Click OK.



  4. You can now start typing the content in English and the equivalent text will appear with respect to the chosen language. You will be shown word suggestions as you type and you can choose the one you require.
Info
  • Transliteration is different from translation.
  • The conversions are made based on pronunciation and not the meaning of the typed word. Currently, Writer supports transliteration in the following languages: Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu. 
  • You can send us transliteration language requests and we will work on it in future updates.

Read Aloud

The Read Aloud feature in Zoho Writer allows you to have your document read aloud to you by a computer voice by using text-to-speech (TTS) to play back written text as spoken words. This can be helpful for a variety of reasons, such as:
  1. To proofread your document for errors. The computer voice can help you to identify errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
  2. To help you understand complex or technical documents. The computer voice can help you to understand the meaning of text that you might otherwise have difficulty understanding.
  3. To learn a new language. The computer voice can help you to practice listening to and understanding a new language.
  4. To simply have someone read to you. If you are unable to read yourself, the computer voice can provide you with a way to enjoy reading.
  5. To multi-task. You can put a document in Read Aloud and continue browsing and doing other tasks.

How to use the Read Aloud feature in Zoho Writer?

  1. Open the document that you want to read aloud and open the left panel.
  2. You can access Read Aloud:
    1. By right clicking and selecting Read Aloud from the menu.
    2. On the Tools tab, in the Review group, click Read Aloud.


  3. The Read Aloud bar will appear at the top of the document. The computer voice will begin reading the document from the beginning. You can also select a specific section of text to be read aloud by selecting the text before you click Read Aloud. Please note that the whole document will be read if no content is selected.

How to control the reading with the Read Aloud bar?

  1. The Play button will start and stop the reading.
  2. The Pause button will pause the reading.
  3. The Fast-Forward button will skip ahead and read the next sentence in the reading.
  4. The Rewind button will go back to the previous sentence in the reading.
  5. The + or - button will speed up or slow down the reading. The speed can be adjusted by 10 times, from the default speed to 10 times faster or 10 times slower.


When will read aloud be terminated?

The reading will be automatically terminated if the document content changes while reading or if the focus goes into a different view or dialog. A top-band notification will be displayed to inform you that the reading has been terminated.

Limitations:

The Read Aloud feature is only supported in languages and voices that are supported by the operating system and/or browser. If you're facing issues regarding this, please reach out to us at support@zohowriter.com

Engagement Insights

Engagement insights in Writer is a tracking system that gives you detailed statistics on your document views, opens, and how much time each of your recipient spent on the document. You can view per page analytics or track the statistics for the entire document.

These insights will be useful for you to understand how well the content is received among your audience and get an idea on how the collaborators engage with your content.

To view the engagement insights,

  1. Open the required document.
  2. Go to More > Tools tab and click on the Engagement Insights option under the Analyser headerAlternatively, click the drop-down near the Share button and choose the "Engagement Insights" option. Learn more on Document Sharing.


  3. In the Engagement Insights panel, you can see the statistics on who viewed or opened the document, how much time did each one spent per page or on the entire document.



  4. You can also track the time spent, pages read, and visits made by each collaborator. Click on any collaborator name to view the engagement statistics of that particular user.

 Random text generator

Filler text/Random text generator lets you add text to your document to test layout and other design options. Just type in =rand(n) and press Enter, where n is the number of paragraphs you want. For example, if you want five paragraphs of text, type in =rand(5) and press Enter.

Also, typing =rand(x,y) followed by the Enter button, will create x paragraphs with y lines of “lorem ipsum” text.

Find and Replace

Use Writer's Find and Replace to speed up formatting, making changes to documents in one go, and to give a suitable structure by consistently maintaining a style and tone throughout the document. With Advanced Options, a lot of additional capabilities have been added to the Find and Replace tool. For example, you can apply a specific style to a specific set of words, replace misspelled words, replace words with the hyperlink version of the same words, replace multiple spaces with single space, etc. 

Idea
  1. Use command + F (mac) or Control + F (windows) to use Find and Replace.
  2. Please note that you can either replace at one instance at a time or replace every occurrence in the document in one click.

 Plain text 

Find as many words or phrases in a document and replace them within seconds.
  1. Open Find and replace. (command + F/Control + F)
  2. Click Advanced Options to see Search Options and Find and Replace in
  3. Choose Plain Text from the options. 
What can I find if I choose Plain Text?
  1. Any character
  2. Any number
  3. Any letter
  4. Caret character
  5. tab character
  6. Manual line break
  7. Paragraph
  8. Empty paragraph
  9. Hyphens and dashes
With what can I replace if I choose Plain Text?
  1. Plain text
  2. Paragraph
  3. Tab character
  4. Manual line break
  5. Hyphens and dashes
Example:
Find : Manual line break
Replace : Empty paragraph
In the above case, instances with manual line breaks will be replaced by an empty paragraph.

Paragraphs

Merge and insert text between paragraphs using the find and replace paragraph feature in Zoho Writer. In this article, we will explore the following cases of merging and inserting text with examples for each case.

Case  1: Merging multiple paragraphs
All the paragraphs found using ^p will be merged into one long paragraph.

Quote
Find: ^p (paragraph break)  
Replace with: (nothing)

Original Text
:
I love pizza.
^p
I also enjoy burgers.
^p
Fries are great too.

After Replace
:
I love pizza. I also enjoy burgers. Fries are great too.

Case  2: Inserting text between paragraphs
All paragraphs are merged into one, but the text in Replace with is inserted wherever a paragraph break used to be.

Quote
Find: ^p (paragraph break)  
Replace with: Test

Original Text
:
I love pizza.
^p
I also enjoy burgers.
^p
Fries are great too.

After Replace
:
I love pizza. Test I also enjoy burgers. Test Fries are great too.

Case  3: Merging paragraphs that end with a specific character/word/phrase.
You have several paragraphs, and you want to merge the paragraphs that end with a certain character or number of characters, like a period or a specific word, into one continuous paragraph.

Quote
Find: n.^p (the letter "n" followed by a paragraph break)
Replace with: (nothing)

Original Text
:
John went to the garden.
^p
He enjoyed the warm sun.
^p
It was a peaceful afternoon.
^p
Later, he met with his friend.

After Replace
:
John went to the garden. He enjoyed the warm sun. It was a peaceful afternoon.
Later, he met with his friend.
Case  4: Merging paragraphs ending with a character/word/phrase and inserting a text in between
You can not only merge paragraphs that end with a specific character or word, but also insert additional text between the merged paragraphs during the process. Here's an example:

Quote
Find: team.^p (the word "team" followed by a paragraph break)
Replace with: team. Additionally,

Original Text:
The project was completed by the marketing team.
^p
The results were outstanding.
^p
The operations team also contributed significantly.
^p
Everyone was pleased with the outcome.

After Replace:
The project was completed by the marketing team. Additionally, The results were outstanding.
The operations team also contributed significantly. Additionally, Everyone was pleased with the outcome.
Notes
Note:
Searching for paragraph breaks with trailing characters will not fetch any results.
Find: ^p_  
Result: No results.
Explanation: Searching for ^p_ means you're looking for a paragraph break followed by an underscore (_). However, a paragraph break means the end of a paragraph, and nothing can exist immediately after that break within the same paragraph. That’s why this search won’t return any results as it’s not a valid operation.

Wildcards

Wildcards are substitutes that can take any value. Wildcards can be useful when you are looking for a partial match or when you want to match all variants of a pattern. In other words, when you are not sure of what you are looking for like the exact spelling of a person, company or a product, you can achieve it with a combination of wildcards with other text or formatting options. For example, J*y (uppercase J, star, lowercase y), will find Joey, Judy, Jacky, Jessy, etc.
Idea
Hint : Wildcards are case-sensitive
  1. Open Find and replace. (command + F/Control + F)
  2. Click Advanced Options to see Search Options and Find and Replace in
  3. Choose Wildcard from the options.
  4. Click the drop down on the right side of the find search bar to use the available wildcards.

What are the available Wildcards I can use?

Wildcard
Name
Use/example
<
Word starts with
<any will find anything, anyone, and anywhere
>
Word ends with
tion> will find nation, action, and emotion
?
Any character
p?t will find pot, pet, paint, and p t
[-]
Character in range
[b-d]ut will find but, cut, and dut
[!]
Not
[!dm]ice will find rice and nice, but not dice and mice
{,}
Num occurrences
o(2,4) will find book(o repeated 2 times) and booook(o repeated 4 times)
@
previous one or more
bo@k will find bok, book, boook,booook, etc
*
0 or more characters
d*g will find dg, dog, and dog is running
Sample wildcard patterns:
email address, web address, and date
Use these preset patterns to find email, web addresses and dates present in the document

What are the wildcards that I can replace with other wildcards?
  1. (^t) Tab character - finds tab characters present in the document
  2. (_) Em dash - finds em dashes in the document
  3. (-) En dash - finds en dashes in the document
  4. (^|) Manual Line Break - finds manual line breaks in the document

Objects 

Choosing objects will find only the specific object selected. For example, Find > Objects > Heading > All headings will find the text/character just in all the headings of the document and not in the content. Objects are most useful when you have to examine if you have all the headings, bookmarks, fields, tables, images, end-notes and footnotes in order as per requirements in the document.
  1. Open Find and replace. (command + F/Control + F)
  2. Click Advanced Options to see Search Options and Find and Replace in
  3. Choose Object from the options.
  4. Click the drop down on the right side of the find search bar to find the allowed objects.
Notes
Please note that objects can only be found but not replaced. The limitation on replacing objects is that on choosing an object, say Image, all the images in the document will be highlighted but to replace them, it has to be done one at a time manually.

What all objects can I find? 
  1. Headings
  2. Bookmarks
  3. Fields:
    a. All fields
    b. Autofields
    c. Fillable fields
    d. Merge fields
  4. Tables
  5. Images
  6. End-notes
  7. Footnotes

 Search options  

Checking or unchecking one or more search options sets a criteria when you find something.

Option
What happens when enabled
Use/example
Match case
Finds only the text in the same case as entered in the find search bar.
Boat will find exactly Boat and not boat or BOAT
Whole word
Finds the text only when it is a whole word and not in the middle of words
in will find only the preposition in and not "in"k or p"in"
Match prefix
Finds the text only when it is in the beginning of a word or when it is the entire word
in will find ink, in, invent and not pink and pin
Match suffix
Finds the text only when it is at the end of a word or when it is the entire word
in will find pin, in, tin and not ink, pink and invent
Include locked contents
Find and replace works on the locked content which usually can't be replaced by any person other than the document owner
 

Find and replace in 

You can optionally select if you want your "Find and replace" to apply for the entire document or just in specific sections. You can find and replace in:
  1. Whole document
  2. Current section only
  3. Tables only
  4. End-notes/Footnotes only

How to use Find and Replace?

  1. Press Command+F or Ctrl+F to launch the Find and Replace tool.
  2. Click on the Advanced Options link.
  3. In the Find and Replace With fields, select the desired formats based on the content that you wish to search and replace respectively.
  4. If needed, select the desired Search Options, for focused search.
  5. In the Find and Replace in, select the desired option to set the search scope, and click Done.

FAQ's on Find and Replace


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