Based on a transformed Painleve property and the variable separated ODE method, a function transformationmethod is proposed to search for exact solutions of some partial differential equations (PDEs) with hyperbolic orexponential functions.This approach provides a more systematical and convenient handling of the solution process of thiskind of nonlinear equations.Its key point is to eradicate the hyperbolic or exponential terms by a transformed Painleveproperty and reduce the given PDEs to a variable-coefficient ordinary differential equations, then we seek for solutions tothe resulting equations by some methods.As an application, exact solutions for the combined sinh-cosh-Gordon equationare formally derived.