TMG-L Archives

Archiver > TMG > 2006-03 > 1141229870


From: "John Cardinal" <>
Subject: RE: [TMG] Change Mac names in TMG?
Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 11:17:50 -0500
In-Reply-To: <4405C1B1.9020300@earthlink.net>


Ron Hamlin wrote:
> TMG Utility will make the changes you would like. If you
> don't have it, it's available at www.johncardinal.com/tmgutil
>
> Kathy Cardoza wrote:
> > Is there a way to change the way certain surnames appear in TMG? For
> > instance:
> >
> > MacHado should be Machado
> > MacEdo should be Macedo
> > MacKley should be Mackley
> >
> > I would like to clean this up in my program to be the way it should
> > be.

Kathy,

I'd like to expand on Ron's answer.

TMG Utility has two features of interest in this situation:

- Change Name Parts

- Capitalize Names

Change Name Parts can be used to change parts of names. I think it is the
best choice in this case. Change Name Parts accepts a set of rules,
including filters (what names to change) and actions (what change to make).
In this case, your rules would be

If Surname equal to "MacHado"

Change Surname set to "Machado"
and Change SortSurname copy Surname

Repeat that for all the surnames you want to modify.

I include a couple "rule files" with TMG Utility that have pre-cooked
filters and actions, and there is one for this case. So, you could open the
Rules Editor and then use the Load Rules button to load the "Change
Surname.u5r" file. It is configured to prompt you for the current version of
the name and then for the desired version of the name. So, you run the same
set of rules once for each surname, but vary the response to the prompts
based on whether you are fixing Machado or Mackley or whatever.

Capitalize Names is designed to convert surnames stored in all uppercase to
a mix of uppercase and lowercase. It doesn't apply here, for two reasons.
First, the names already are a mix of uppercase and lowercase. Second,
Capitalize Names doesn't do the right thing 100% of the time. It is designed
to do most of the work when a the project has all surnames in uppercase, and
so a 98% solution reduces the work dramatically: perfection is nice, but not
necessary. You fix the exceptions manually.

One specific area where Capitalize Names won't always do the right thing is
"Mac" names. The program converts "Mac" names to have a capital following
the "Mac" except when the surname is on a list of a few hundred exceptions.
I can't recall if "Machado" or the other names listed above are on the
exceptions table. You can edit the table, but again... I think Change Name
Parts is the right choice for you.

Hope this helps.

John


This thread: