Using Macros in Your Writing Process
A more efficient way to write and edit
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For every person who uses macros, there are probably at least two who have never heard of them or who think they’re too complicated—and therefore scary—to bother with. I can’t remember when I first heard about macros, but I do remember they sounded fairly mysterious.
Though a macro can be as complicated as you want it to be, there are a good number of them out there, ready to install and use, that can help your writing.
What is a macro?
A macro is simply a string of computer commands that allows your computer to run a set of tasks easily and automatically. You can write your own if you’re so inclined, or you can install macros that have been written by someone who loves doing that kind of stuff.
As a fiction editor, I receive manuscripts that range from neatly formatted to mildly chaotic, and starting with a level playing field can make all the difference in the world. The distraction of having to stop reading every few minutes to change a random straight quote to a curly quote, or something equally tedious, can really slow down progress and break your train of thought.
Who can use macros?
Many book editors use macros to streamline the editing process, as I mentioned above, often as a “clean sweep” type of tidying before getting down to the nitty gritty of reading through a project. Others use them at the end of a writing session to clean up any lingering errors.
Writers can use macros too! They’re not limited to editors only, and can be a helpful tool for writers of all types at any stage of writing.
There are programs available that are essentially groups of macros in a tidy, extremely useful package. ProWritingAid, for example, is a wonderful tool that can help writers with not only grammar, but sentence length, repetitive phrasing, clarity, and more. PerfectIt is another tool that bills itself as “proofreading software for professionals” but is used by writers and editors alike, for fiction and nonfiction, both during and after the writing, as a consistency checker. I make good use of both programs.
But if you’d like to start off with some simple macros you can get for free, Paul Beverley is the guy to go to. He has written hundreds of macros that are easy to use for writers in all fields, and not only does he make them all available for free—really free, not even a “sign up for my mailing list to get these”—he also provides tutorials on YouTube and in the macro downloads.
Though he’s provided a huge assortment of macros to choose from, Paul suggests starting slowly to get used to using the ones you need most. In his downloadable (and regularly updated) book, Macros for Editors, he breaks down the favorite macros based on user feedback, work type, and more. He also provides a “macro menu” that lists the macros by function, and also dates the newer macros, saying “the chances are that the more recent macros are (a) better programmed and (b) likely to be more useful.”
My most-used macros
As you’d expect, I have a handful of macros I’d rather not live without. I use some of them at the start of most editing projects, and others at the end as a double-check. As per Paul Beverley’s advice, I installed only one at a time, beginning with the ones I thought I’d use most, and getting used to using them before installing another.
I’ve programmed most of my macros with the keys shift + alt + [letter] because I don’t tend to use the shift + alt combo for other things, and they’re often not assigned already on the keyboard.
Here are my favorites:
DocAlyse
DocAlyse does exactly what it sounds like: it analyzes your document and tells you what’s inconsistent. Are all your ellipses “proper” ones (a.k.a. the ellipsis character) or are they spaced dots, or unspaced dots. Are they spaced on either side, both sides, or neither? Do you have OK, Ok, okay, or O.K., or multiple variants of it? Have you written “toward” six times (per US spelling) but “towards” four times (per UK spelling)? Is your solidus (slant/slash mark) spaced on one side, both, neither, or a combination of all choices? How many times do you have spelled-out numbers versus numerals? Do certain words contain diacritics but not always, like cafe and café? These are only a few examples of what DocAlyse can show you.
I’ve programmed mine with the keystrokes shift + alt + D since I don’t use that combo for anything else. I run DocAlyse at the beginning of a job and often at the end.
ProperNounAlyse
This is another pre- and post-edit macro for me. If you’re a science fiction writer, this one can be especially helpful with all those alien names. ProperNounAlyse takes a look at all words that start with a capital letter and highlights the ones that may be misspellings of each other. You may end up with some false alarms like “one” and “once” but will also catch such gems as the one I screenshotted below, which not only highlighted typos of a name misspelling, but also the legit alternate spelling, which was not the one preferred by the author. I was able to search for and replace the incorrect ones quickly since I didn’t have to think up every possible misspelling on my own, or hope that when I ran across the name, I’d catch it each time. A typo is one thing, but an alternate spelling is all too easily glossed over when reading hundreds of pages.
I’ve programmed this one with the keys shift + alt + P for my convenience, and I run this macro before starting a copyedit and also at the very end of the editing rounds.
MerriamFetch
This one is worth its weight in gold, in my opinion. I had a glitch in my Word program once and had to uninstall this macro for a time, and I felt severely impaired without it.
MerriamFetch allows you to open the online Merriam Webster’s dictionary to check on a word for spelling, verb forms, hyphenation, and definition. Because I edit a lot of US English books, this made perfect sense for me to install so I could ensure proper spelling and hyphenation. This is also handy for those times when a word just doesn’t feel like the correct usage; MerriamFetch makes quick work of looking something up. You don’t have to leave a tab open to type in each word you’re seeking, as some of those websites really bog down the speed of a computer. All you have to do is click on the word, type your programmed keystrokes—I use shift + alt + W—and there it is.
Beverley offers multiple “fetch” macros including Google, law dictionaries, thesauruses, BibleGateway, Wiki, Google Ngram, PubMed, and dozens of others.
SwapWord
Oh, how handy this one is! This macro swaps the word you’ve clicked on with the word after it. Sounds like a waste of effort? Nope. Not when you have a novel where the author consistently uses “said Joe” (old-fashioned, dated, formal) instead of “Joe said” (current, common usage). In fact, that example is the exact reason I installed the macro.
I programmed my keystrokes for this as shift + alt + S, and every one of the hundreds of times I ran across this particular issue, it was a simple matter of three keys instead of deleting a word, moving the cursor, and retyping (or pasting) the word elsewhere. It sounds like no big deal, but it took a chore from clumsy to efficient.
CatchPhrase
Have you ever written a piece or edited something and wondered if it’s just your imagination, or if the author has actually used a particular phrase too many times? CatchPhrase searches for and counts repeated phrases, so you can eliminate (or point out to someone else) that 52 uses of the phrase “at the end of the day” is probably 49 too many for a book of 50,000 words.
I use shift + alt + C for this on my computer.
WordPairAlyse
This one is kind of neat. Not essential, but often helpful. It shows the frequency of word pairs that are never hyphenated—like some thing/something, every day/everyday—but can change the meaning of a sentence if they’re incorrect.
I haven’t assigned keystrokes for this one since I don’t use it often, but when I think I need it, I just go to the macro section on my Word ribbon and run it.
Benefits of using macros
If you’re a writer, one of the best benefits of using macros is that you’ll be able to clean up your document really well before hiring an editor. A cleaner manuscript can often mean a difference in editing costs.
Macros can ensure consistency (see my example under ProperNounAlyse) when styling headers, spelling names, or formatting tables, to name a few applications. Macros don’t get fatigued when reading through a document, so you’re not likely to miss anything.
Macros can help prevent repetitive use injuries by reducing the number of keystrokes needed for certain tasks. A few strokes may seem like no big deal, but they add up. Consider the macro EmDashUnspaced, which removes punctuation, adds an unspaced em dash and lowercases the next character. A two- or three-key combo to use the macro is far preferable to all that typing and removing.
Macros can help you speed through tedious tasks. There comes a point in every writer or editor’s life when the larger, hour-saving improvements have been made, and what remains are smaller improvements that may save seconds or minutes. But again, it all adds up.
Most of Paul Beverley’s macros provide a report in a separate document, so you don’t have to go through your entire doc to find highlighted items. You can examine only the ones you need to.
You can find the Macro Menu, which lists all the macros Paul Beverley has included in his macro book (so far), along with a description of what they do, right here. The menu is invaluable for when you’re starting out, listing macros by function and type.
Whether the macro takes care of something simple or complex, they’re well worth exploring. Find one you like, try it out, and I can almost guarantee you’ll go looking for another one that suits your needs.
