Title: Intelligent Character Replacement question
Last modified: November 20, 2021

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# Intelligent Character Replacement question

 *  Resolved [H&S-Team](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/)
 * (@hackespitze)
 * [4 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/)
 * First, thanks a lot for a very helpful plugin!
 * In our project, we auto-create Image Titles and Alt-Text from image-file-names.
   We use _custom diacritic word replacements_ to re-establish German Umlauts and
   special character.
 * As our list is growing quickly, I would like to know whether it also works with
   partial matches. Say I would like to re-establish the letter ä, whenever the 
   string _aermel _is found.
 * Instead of explicitly adding every possible word and case (aermel, aermeln, aermels,
   spitzenaermel) … is there a way to add just the relevant subset of the word?
 * In my sample, the snippet *aerm* would do – and it also worked for _laerm_ and
   _waermflasche_. Hence – we could serve all cases with a far shorter list.
    -  This topic was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by [H&S-Team](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/).

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

 *  Plugin Author [pepe](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pputzer/)
 * (@pputzer)
 * [4 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15101046)
 * Hi [@hackespitze](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/), the custom
   diacritics unfortunately only work with full words by design – otherwise, there
   would be far to many incorrect replacements.
 * I think adding an upload filter to automatically rename images with “ae” etc.
   in the filenames would be a better solution for your usecase. (Or if you’ve already
   uploaded all the files, a database search & replace.). This would allow for subsequent
   manual fixes to incorrect replacements.
 *  Thread Starter [H&S-Team](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/)
 * (@hackespitze)
 * [4 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15110601)
 * Thanks for your reply! I now understand that limiting the tool to full words 
   was a deliberate design decision. I’m curious – Have you actually tested failure
   rate at scale? Only considering the long explicit replacement list I already 
   have, turning Umlauts in German language from ue, ae and oe to ü, ä and ö should
   work robustly. None of the list-entries we have so far would cause an error.
 * An _inverted list_, which holds all exceptions to transcription rules (_Carmen
   McRae, Dr. Oetker, Menuett, Hugo Strasser_) should be greatly shorter.
 * @Uploadfilter: We by all means need image names without umlauts and other German
   language characters, as these cause trouble in our Import Pipeline. While naming
   images offline, we therefore have removed all Umlauts, etc. As we still forgot
   a few, our Importer went haywire. For that reason, a script now skips wrongly
   named assets.
 * What we want is recreate the special characters with image file-names as input**
   while leaving image-names unchanged**. Search and Replace could work – but one
   would not want to run this manually, each time, when uploading assets.
 * Having these special characters right could give a competitive edge in Image 
   SEO in E-Commerce for German language markets. For this to work, however, one
   needs to re-establish proper names, before assets get indexed by search engines.
 *  Plugin Author [pepe](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pputzer/)
 * (@pputzer)
 * [4 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15110727)
 * By “renaming” I meant the names of the attachment objects in WordPress, not (
   necessarily) the actual filenames. All this can be done with upload filter hooks.
   In any case, you can add custom fixes using the [wp-Typography API](https://github.com/mundschenk-at/wp-typography/blob/master/includes/wp-typography/typography/class-custom-token-fix.php#L96),
   it is just not something I would recommend. However long your exception list 
   is, it will always miss some words.
 *  Thread Starter [H&S-Team](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/)
 * (@hackespitze)
 * [4 years, 6 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15110897)
 * Thanks again :o) I will discuss the options you propose with our developer.
 * While our project hasn’t gone live yet I’m very happy how much better text looks
   on the staging site with your WP-Typography. Great that you make this available.
   👋
 *  Plugin Author [pepe](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pputzer/)
 * (@pputzer)
 * [4 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15246444)
 * Hi [@hackespitze](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/), do you have
   more question or can we consider the issue resolved?
 *  Thread Starter [H&S-Team](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/)
 * (@hackespitze)
 * [4 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15268170)
 * Hi [@pputzer](https://wordpress.org/support/users/pputzer/),
    please excuse my
   belated reply! Thanks for asking – yes you can mark this issue as solved. 👋

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

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## Tags

 * [special-characters](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/special-characters/)
 * [umlauts](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/umlauts/)

 * 6 replies
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [H&S-Team](https://wordpress.org/support/users/hackespitze/)
 * Last activity: [4 years, 5 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/intelligent-character-replacement-question/#post-15268170)
 * Status: resolved