[Word 2010] Any way to alter multiple numbers at one time?

Mego Thor

Boring, work-related question ahead. I have a list of several numbers in a Word document that all have to be changed by the same amount. These aren't page numbers or any type of bullet; just a list of plain numbers. I often have to change the value of these numbers all by the same amount, and have been doing each one by hand. Is there some way to select all of these numbers at once and change them all at the same time?

puffycow

Are all of the numbers the same? Like, is it change number 555 to 666? If so you can do a Replace All (Ctrl+H I think).

Mego Thor

No, they're all different numbers (10, 11, 15, 20, etc..) that all need to be increased or decreased by the same amount (say +/- 2).

rockmonkey

Can this information be saved as an Excel spreadsheet instead of using word? That would make it super easy. I deal with plenty of documents with a mix of writing and numbers and have found that if you ever need to manipulate anything it's easier to do in Excel after the initial setup and formatting. It may take a little bit more effort to format the text to look correctly if you're not used to doing something like this in excel, but that's a one time cost for the benefit of easy number manipulation from now on. You can enter the Text directly in a cell or (shudder) overlay a text-box into the spreadsheet. Both have their uses and you can still format the text like you would in word.

minirhyder

Agree with Excel. You can put them into the spreadsheet, enter the number you want to add to them into another cell, copy that cell onto all of them, select "Paste Special" and select "Add." Then copy them all back into word.
That's probably the easiest way, word can be quite a bitch sometimes.

Mego Thor

The big bitch is that I have to show the changes with Track Change turned on.

Daenris

if it's just a list you could copy and paste into excel then increase the values and copy/paste back. Of course that will only be nice and simple if it's just a simple list of numbers. If they're scattered around this isn't a good option.

Mego Thor

Scattered around, and mixed in with text. I'm appreciating all the replies, though!

rockmonkey

Man, that may be beyond me, but I'm not a super wiz with word. I know if it was text, list of numbers then text you could go to insert and insert an excel spreadsheet "box" into the word document and then adjust it to either have 1 row and several columns for a horizontal list of numbers or 1 column and several rows for a vertical list and then you could manipulate them that way in the word document but with excel functionality. This however doesn't seem like it would be of much benefit if the numbers were interspersed within a block(s) of text.

I mean technically you could insert a excel speadsheet box for each number in the document and then tailor the size down to 1 row 1 column but then I don't know how you would manipulate all the spreadsheet boxes at once to increase the number. You could maybe do that then instead of each 1 by 1 spreadsheet box inserted into the word document holding the actual value of the number if could probably '=' reference back to a seperate excel file entirely that simply held the list of numbers and then you'd actually update the numbers in the seperate excel file and when the main word document was opened it would recalculate the forumals in each cell, which in turns pulls the new data from the spreadsheet.

I hope that wasn't too confusing. There maybe a MUCH easier way to do this, and that still doesn't help with the tracking or whatever (no clue what this is, heh).

edit: trying it out first hand I don't know that you can =reference to a seperate excel file from an inserted excel box inside a word document like you could if it were 2 normal excel files.

edit2: Yeah it does work the same as hyperlinking 2 excel documents so that's at least something, although I don't know that it helps still since it requires there to be a 2nd file that's an excel spreadsheet that holds the numeric data