Introduction
The “Replace Fields” dialog can be used to replace all instances of fields with a different fields from the same data source. Using the “Field Group” functionality, found in on the Advanced Field Options, it is also possible to replace multiple fields in a single operation (for example, when changing a document from one language to another by replacing one language field-set with another).
Replacing Fields in the current document
Use the “Replace Fields…” menu option from the data panel’s pop-out menu.
Replacing Fields in book documents
EasyCatalog adds a “Replace Fields…” menu option to the book panel’s pop-out menu, on the EasyCatalog sub-menu.
The Replace Fields Dialog
The “Search For” and “Replace With” pop-ups will show:
- A list of all fields for the data source you’re working with
- A list of field groups from the data source you’re working with (configured using the Advanced Field Options pane, see below)
- EasyCatalog will also scan the front-most document for fields that are placed in the document but no longer in the data source. These will be shown separately at the bottom of the field list.
The list of fields and field groups shown in the “Search For” and “Replace With” pop-ups will be taken from the data source for the last data panel you interacted with, so please ensure you make a selection in the data source you’re working with before showing the dialog.
The “Layers” pop-up is not available when working with book documents; fields on all unlocked layers will be replaced in the book documents processed. Using it, you can restrict the replacement to all (unlocked layers), a specific named layer or the current layer (the layer shown with the pencil icon in the Layers panel).
Replacing Multiple Fields in a single operation
When switching languages, for example, it’s often necessary to replace multiple fields in a single operation.
Using this data set as an example, it’s possible to define two field groups — French and German — and simply replace French for German in the document in a single operation:
| key | Field1-FR | Field2-FR | Field1-DE | Field2-DE |
| 1 | bonjour | au revoir | hallo | Auf Wiedersehen |
To achieve this, we need to assign each field to a “Field Group” using the Advanced Field Options pane, and also define an ‘identifier’:
The identifier is a regular expression that defines the common element of all field names within the group. For example, all of our French fields end with -FR so we specify that as the identifier. For the German fields, we would use _DE. The field group needs to be specified (in Field Options) for all of the fields that belong to the group.
Once field groups have been configured, they will be shown separately in the “Search For” and “Replace With” pop-ups in the Replace Fields dialog:
