editing/deleting text

[Hennie Neuhoff]

Hi Guys,
I know there's someone out there that can solve my problem. I've got a list
of names and payments made at various branches. My problem is not all
branches use the same name, ie:
AA Uys
Mr. AA Uys
Uys AA Mr.
I would like a macro that would leave the information in such a way that I
can sort it alphabetically.
Much appreciate your assistance

 

[Bob Bridges]

Use the SSN instead.

Ok, seriously, this is why computer jocks hate using names. It isn't just
the many various forms such as you list below, it's also that someone out
there is sure to misspell it "Yus" or "Uis" or "Uyse" and that'll never work.
Don't you have an account number or something that you can use?

If not, I don't know of any magic that'll get you around this. You can try
to write some logic that spots words like "Mr." ("Mister", "Mr", "M", "M.",
"Señor", "Sr.", "Sr", "Herr" and so on), and recognizes single upper-case
letters as initials, and tries to figure out that the rest of the words are
given and/or last names, except for "Jr", "IV", "van der", "Esquire", "Mc"
and "the Right Honorable".

I have written logic that matches names and grades each match as perfect,
partial or questionable, and it's saved us a ton of work. We were able to
assign account numbers to about 60% of the names without looking further, and
to most of the rest with only two or three weeks' more work, and to the last
hundred names in only another two or three months. But that was a one-time
fix; after that we never let another record into the system that had only a
name and no account number, and we could forget about names and just use
account numbers.

I would say it's past time for you to do that where you are.