Hey who knows about computer crap on here

[levendis]

I HAVE A QUESTION. And I'm guessing the answer will be more complicated than my math-dumb brain can handle, but here goes.

Okay. So. Say I wanted to write a program/process that would replace characters with arbitrarily-chosen pixels, ie a=red, b=blue, c=green, !=hot pink, etc. How would I go about it? I've been doing this by replacing each instance of a character with a color's hex code in a text editor then resaving in a hex editor, but find-replace-all overwrites previous edits (find-replace 'f' erases FF FF, f'rinstance), so it takes forever, and I'd like to automate the process.

Details:
1. I'm on a mac, but I have a pc running Mint also
2. I have zero experience in programming
3. Why am I even


EDIT: Okay, I just realized I can assign a symbol to each letter and then assign a hex code to each symbol. So! Is there a way to automate the find/replace function? Would it be worth looking at Java translation programs or is there an easier way?


EDIT 2: Automator workflows, right. Except now I am also researching conlangs and ceasar cipher programs what rabbit hoooooollllllle