Automator--find, replace

How do I make an Automator script that will take a folder of text files and do a find & replace on each document?
These are txt files, relatively short, with one or 2 strings that I want to replace with other strings. Like to make this so it will do it for each txt file in a folder.
Thanx

HI, according to this page, which looks as though it's a straight lift from the Microsoft help pages:
"You can't type merge field characters («« »») manually or use the Symbol command on the Insert menu. You must use mail merge."
Doesn't look promising, I'm afraid.

Similar Messages

Find & Replace text in html files

This is my first real attempt at using Automator, and it has become increasingly frustrating for me. I love the idea of Automator, nice interface, and it appears to be so easy to use. But, I can't get it to actually DO anything and I don't understand why.
Here is my goal:
to batch process multiple html files to remove certain characters and words (or replace them with empty space).
I currently open these files in Pages and do 6 separate Find & Replace commands for each file before I continue with my other processing tasks. This is very tedious and I believe the computer should be able to find & replace multiple items at one time. (I have used other utilities to do batch renaming and trimming file names before.)
All I want to do is select a group of files (usually 25 at a time) and have Automator get rid of all the unwanted words and characters before I open each file for final processing in Pages. I found a set of Automator actions for TextEdit which includes a Find & Replace action, but I've wasted over an hour so far trying to get it to work.
When I run the workflow, it acts like it's doing something, but the files remain unchanged. I have tried using actions such as Read Text File, Get Contents of TextEdit Document, Set Contents of TextEdit Document, along with 6 instances of Find & Replace, but I cannot get it to work.
I'm at a point today where I cannot afford to mess around with this anymore. I have to do it the long way in Pages or else I'll never get it done, but I want to get these Automator workflows to work before I have to repeat this task. (I do this at least once a week right now.)
Any ideas or suggestions? I've tried reading in the help menus and support pages, but perhaps I'm just not understanding something here.

Any ideas or suggestions?
You might be interested in using TextWrangler. It can perform batch find-and-replace changes across multiple selected files.
Good luck!
Andrew99

Is there a way to use the find/replace tool to select the actual step in the TestStand sequence instead of just listing matching values in the find window?

The purpose of this is to be able to select many steps that are scattered throughout a sequence so I can change the step type one time. I could do this now, but it would take me 30 minutes to click through the sequence and select all of the steps before I'd even change the step type because there are different steps inbetween the ones I want to select. I wouldn't be able to just use the shift key to select multiple steps because of that. I have about 500 steps I need to select, so it would be worth it to find an automated way to do that.
Unless there's a way to change a step type from a numericlimittest to an action step type from the find/replace window???

I ended up using ActiveX calls in TestStand to find the steps I wanted and change the step type to Action. See attached example sequence.
Attachments:
Convert NumericLimitTest to Action step type example.seq ‏9 KB

Find & replace part of a string in Numbers using do shell script in AppleScript

Hello,
I would like to set a search-pattern with a wildcard in Applescript to find - for example - the pattern 'Table 1::$*$4' for use in a 'Search & Replace script'
The dollar signs '$' seem to be a bit of problem (refers to fixed values in Numbers & to variables in Shell ...)
Could anyone hand me a solution to this problem?
The end-goal - for now - would be to change the reference to a row-number in a lot of cells (number '4' in the pattern above should finally be replaced by 5, 6, 7, ...)
Thx.

Hi,
Here's how to do that:
try
    tell application "Numbers" to tell front document to tell active sheet
        tell (first table whose selection range's class is range)
            set sr to selection range
            set f to text returned of (display dialog "Find this in selected cells in Numbers " default answer "" with title "Find-Replace Step 1" buttons {"Cancel", "Next"})
            if f = "" then return
            set r to text returned of (display dialog "Replace '" & f & "' with " default answer f with title "Find-Replace Step 2")
            set {f, r} to my escapeForSED(f, r) -- escape some chars, create back reference for sed
            set tc to count cells of sr
            tell sr to repeat with i from 1 to tc
                tell (cell i) to try
                    set oVal to formula
                    if oVal is not missing value then set value to (my find_replace(oVal, f, r))
                end try
            end repeat
        end tell
    end tell
on error number n
    if n = -128 then return
    display dialog "Did you select cells?" buttons {"cancel"} with title "Oops!"
end try
on find_replace(t, f, r)
    do shell script "/usr/bin/sed 's~" & f & "~" & r & "~g' <<< " & (quoted form of t)
end find_replace
on escapeForSED(f, r)
    set tid to text item delimiters
    set text item delimiters to "*" -- the wildcard
    set tc1 to count (text items of f)
    set tc2 to count (text items of r)
    set text item delimiters to tid
    if (tc1 - tc2) < 0 then
        display alert "The number of wildcard in the replacement string must be equal or less than the number of wildcard in the search string."
        error -128
    end if
    -- escape search string, and create back reference for each wildcard (the wildcard is a dot in sed) --> \$.\$
    set f to do shell script "/usr/bin/sed -e 's/[]~$.^|[]/\\\\&/g;s/\\*/\\\$.\\\$/g' <<<" & quoted form of f
    -- escape the replacement string, Perl replace wildcard by two backslash and an incremented integer, to get the back reference --> \\1 \\2
    return {f, (do shell script "/usr/bin/sed -e 's/[]~$.^|[]/\\\\&/g' | /usr/bin/perl -pe '$n=1;s/\\*/\"\\\\\" . $n++/ge'<<<" & (quoted form of r))}
end escapeForSED
For what you want to do, you must have the wildcard in the same position in both string. --> find "Table 1::$*$3", replace "Table 1::$*$4"
Important, you can use no wildcard in both (the search string and the replacement string) or you can use any wildcard in the search string with no wildcard in the replacement string).
But, the number of wildcard in the replacement string must be equal or less than the number of wildcard in the search string.

Batch code for running a find/replace all on multiple files within a source floder/directory

What I need is a Batch source code that will open all files in a folder/directory and run a find and replace_all query within them and then save all the files. The files were created in Illustrator and saved using the Scene7 FXG format extension.    These files will be uploaded into Scene7 as a group after the find and replace macro/query is run on the code. The same find and replace query will be the same for all the files. Basically this function or batch process will save time in setting the same parameters all at one time instead of having to set the parameters individually in scene7.
a source code sample of the find/replace module macro might be              searchString: s7:colorvalue="#FFFFFFFF"
                                                                                                                      replaceString: s7:colorValue="#&txtclr;"
                                                                                                                      searchWhat   "FXG document"
                                                                                                                         searchSource: true,
                                                                                                                    useRegularExpressions:   true
I have no problems creating batch files within Ai and PhotoShop but I have limited programming skills in how to create source code for manuipulating documents outside of those apps or in a OS invironment.
I could probably come up witha simple program to do what i want for one document but i get lost when dealing with multiple documents in a source folder (prolbem is, I will be dealing with thousands of documents not 100 or less)
If anything which Adope cloud app would work best: Dreamweaver or Edge code   (or just use my notepad)

What I need is a Batch source code that will open all files in a folder/directory and run a find and replace_all query within them and then save all the files. The files were created in Illustrator and saved using the Scene7 FXG format extension.    These files will be uploaded into Scene7 as a group after the find and replace macro/query is run on the code. The same find and replace query will be the same for all the files. Basically this function or batch process will save time in setting the same parameters all at one time instead of having to set the parameters individually in scene7.
a source code sample of the find/replace module macro might be              searchString: s7:colorvalue="#FFFFFFFF"
                                                                                                                      replaceString: s7:colorValue="#&txtclr;"
                                                                                                                      searchWhat   "FXG document"
                                                                                                                         searchSource: true,
                                                                                                                    useRegularExpressions:   true
I have no problems creating batch files within Ai and PhotoShop but I have limited programming skills in how to create source code for manuipulating documents outside of those apps or in a OS invironment.
I could probably come up witha simple program to do what i want for one document but i get lost when dealing with multiple documents in a source folder (prolbem is, I will be dealing with thousands of documents not 100 or less)
If anything which Adope cloud app would work best: Dreamweaver or Edge code   (or just use my notepad)

Find & Replace

I'm trying to get DW 8 to allow me to remove some of the
"found" items before using the replace function to avoid having to
open each file individually - but when I delete entries from the
"found" list, on r-click I'm given 3 options:
- Open File
- Find & Replace
- Clear Results
The Find & Replace option takes me back to the original
Find & Replace screen. With DW4 you have the option of deleting
some of the "found" entries before pressing the "replace" button.
Has DW really taken a backward step?

I neevr used DW4, so I'm not certain how that worked. And it
doesn't look like you can delete entries from the Search panel.
You might use other techniques to limit your changes. Any
folders or files that are cloaked will not be updated by the
Replace. You can set cloaking for specific files or folders, or by
file extension (on the Site panel). Or, you could select only the
files you want to target and use the Selected Files in Site option
of the Find In drop-down. Or, you could use the Replace button in
the Find/Replace panel to go through the results one at a time,
rather than using Replace All.
If you are changing HTML tags or attributes, the Find/Replace
options are very powerful.

Find/Replace - multiple replace ... maybe with regex

Hello Dreamweaver community ... I'm relatively new to using Dreamweaver as an editor and I'm working on a large migration project that I'm trying to make easier. Basically, I'm converting an entire site from English to Spanish ... almost literally tag by tag
Something that would make my job a lot easier is if ... every time I open a new Spanish language content file I could ...
replace ALL Spanish language grammar symbols, accents, tildes etc ... with their HTML equivalents ... for example ...
á = á
é = é
í = í
And so on ... there's about 10-12 major changes ...
What I need to figure out is how to save a find/replace query in Dreamweaver .dwr format that replaces all symbols at once instead of needing to do them one at a time ...
Seems like this shoudl be possible but I haven't figured out the right syntax ... I used the (.+) and $1 but it only worked conditionally - in the order the replacements were written. I need it to find ALL instances of a spanish symbol and replace it with its corresponding html ...
Can anyone help me with this ...?
Thank you in advance ...

This is in fact the only solution I found to this problem.
Creating an extension is not that difficult once you have the right
reference material.
Have a look at:
DW API function to find and replace
http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Dreamweaver/9.0_API/dwr_code_cd_013.html
Sample extension file on your machine after installing DW
C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Extension
Manager\Samples\Dreamweaver\
Full specifications of the MXI (extension file) format
http://download.macromedia.com/pub/exchange/mxi_file_format.pdf
quote:
Originally posted by:
Newsgroup User
> So, is it indeed possible to run more than one
find/replace query at a
> time?
As far as i know, no it's not possible.
There has been mentions in the past to this question that a
series of
find/replace queries could be built as a dw extension instead
of a saved
search query.
Alan
Adobe Community Expert, dreamweaver

Find Replace from Textfile with regex

Hello.
I'm wondering if anyone knows about an existing script that does a find/replace by list like the script "FindChangeByList.jsx" that comes with every InDesign installation.
This consists of tow parts, the script itself with the functionality and a simple textfile where you have simple one-liners capable of find/replace with regex.
the Textfile:
//FindChangeList.txt
//A support file for the InDesign CS4 JavaScript FindChangeByList.jsx
//This data file is tab-delimited, with carriage returns separating records.
//The format of each record in the file is:
//findType<tab>findProperties<tab>changeProperties<tab>findChangeOptions<tab>description
//Where:
//<tab> is a tab character
//findType is "text", "grep", or "glyph" (this sets the type of find/change operation to use).
//findProperties is a properties record (as text) of the find preferences.
//changeProperties is a properties record (as text) of the change preferences.
//findChangeOptions is a properties record (as text) of the find/change options.
//description is a description of the find/change operation
//Very simple example:
//text          {findWhat:"--"}          {changeTo:"^_"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all double dashes and replace with an em dash.
//More complex example:
//text          {findWhat:"^9^9.^9^9"}          {appliedCharacterStyle:"price"}          {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}          Find $10.00 to $99.99 and apply the character style "price".
//All InDesign search metacharacters are allowed in the "findWhat" and "changeTo" properties for findTextPreferences and changeTextPreferences.
//If you enter backslashes in the findWhat property of the findGrepPreferences object, they must be "escaped"
//as shown in the example below:
//{findWhat:"\\s+"}
grep          {findWhat:" +"}          {changeTo:" "}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all double spaces and replace with single spaces.
grep          {findWhat:"\r "}          {changeTo:"\r"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all returns followed by a space And replace with single returns.
grep          {findWhat:" \r"}          {changeTo:"\r"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all returns followed by a space and replace with single returns.
grep          {findWhat:"\t\t+"}          {changeTo:"\t"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all double tab characters and replace with single tab characters.
grep          {findWhat:"\r\t"}          {changeTo:"\r"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all returns followed by a tab character and replace with single returns.
grep          {findWhat:"\t\r"}          {changeTo:"\r"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all returns followed by a tab character and replace with single returns.
grep          {findWhat:"\r\r+"}          {changeTo:"\r"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all double returns and replace with single returns.
text          {findWhat:" - "}          {changeTo:"^="}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all space-dash-space and replace with an en dash.
text          {findWhat:"--"}          {changeTo:"^_"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all dash-dash and replace with an em dash.
The script:
//FindChangeByList.jsx
//An InDesign CS5.5 JavaScript
@@@BUILDINFO@@@ "FindChangeByList.jsx" 3.0.0 15 December 2009
//Loads a series of tab-delimited strings from a text file, then performs a series
//of find/change operations based on the strings read from the file.
//The data file is tab-delimited, with carriage returns separating records.
//The format of each record in the file is:
//findType<tab>findProperties<tab>changeProperties<tab>findChangeOptions<tab>description
//Where:
//<tab> is a tab character
//findType is "text", "grep", or "glyph" (this sets the type of find/change operation to use).
//findProperties is a properties record (as text) of the find preferences.
//changeProperties is a properties record (as text) of the change preferences.
//findChangeOptions is a properties record (as text) of the find/change options.
//description is a description of the find/change operation
//Very simple example:
//text          {findWhat:"--"}          {changeTo:"^_"}          {includeFootnotes:true, includeMasterPages:true, includeHiddenLayers:true, wholeWord:false}          Find all double dashes and replace with an em dash.
//More complex example:
//text          {findWhat:"^9^9.^9^9"}          {appliedCharacterStyle:"price"}          {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}          Find $10.00 to $99.99 and apply the character style "price".
//All InDesign search metacharacters are allowed in the "findWhat" and "changeTo" properties for findTextPreferences and changeTextPreferences.
//If you enter backslashes in the findWhat property of the findGrepPreferences object, they must be "escaped"
//as shown in the example below:
//{findWhat:"\\s+"}
//For more on InDesign scripting, go to http://www.adobe.com/products/indesign/scripting/index.html
//or visit the InDesign Scripting User to User forum at http://www.adobeforums.com
main();
function main(){
          var myObject;
          //Make certain that user interaction (display of dialogs, etc.) is turned on.
          app.scriptPreferences.userInteractionLevel = UserInteractionLevels.interactWithAll;
          if(app.documents.length > 0){
                    if(app.selection.length > 0){
                              switch(app.selection[0].constructor.name){
                                        case "InsertionPoint":
                                        case "Character":
                                        case "Word":
                                        case "TextStyleRange":
                                        case "Line":
                                        case "Paragraph":
                                        case "TextColumn":
                                        case "Text":
                                        case "Cell":
                                        case "Column":
                                        case "Row":
                                        case "Table":
                                                  myDisplayDialog();
                                                  break;
                                        default:
                                                  //Something was selected, but it wasn't a text object, so search the document.
                                                  myFindChangeByList(app.documents.item(0));
                    else{
                              //Nothing was selected, so simply search the document.
                              myFindChangeByList(app.documents.item(0));
          else{
                    alert("No documents are open. Please open a document and try again.");
function myDisplayDialog(){
          var myObject;
          var myDialog = app.dialogs.add({name:"FindChangeByList"});
          with(myDialog.dialogColumns.add()){
                    with(dialogRows.add()){
                              with(dialogColumns.add()){
                                        staticTexts.add({staticLabel:"Search Range:"});
                              var myRangeButtons = radiobuttonGroups.add();
                              with(myRangeButtons){
                                        radiobuttonControls.add({staticLabel:"Document", checkedState:true});
                                        radiobuttonControls.add({staticLabel:"Selected Story"});
                                        if(app.selection[0].contents != ""){
                                                  radiobuttonControls.add({staticLabel:"Selection", checkedState:true});
          var myResult = myDialog.show();
          if(myResult == true){
                    switch(myRangeButtons.selectedButton){
                              case 0:
                                        myObject = app.documents.item(0);
                                        break;
                              case 1:
                                        myObject = app.selection[0].parentStory;
                                        break;
                              case 2:
                                        myObject = app.selection[0];
                                        break;
                    myDialog.destroy();
                    myFindChangeByList(myObject);
          else{
                    myDialog.destroy();
function myFindChangeByList(myObject){
          var myScriptFileName, myFindChangeFile, myFindChangeFileName, myScriptFile, myResult;
          var myFindChangeArray, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindLimit, myStory;
          var myStartCharacter, myEndCharacter;
          var myFindChangeFile = myFindFile("/FindChangeSupport/FindChangeList.txt")
          if(myFindChangeFile != null){
                    myFindChangeFile = File(myFindChangeFile);
                    var myResult = myFindChangeFile.open("r", undefined, undefined);
                    if(myResult == true){
                              //Loop through the find/change operations.
                              do{
                                        myLine = myFindChangeFile.readln();
                                        //Ignore comment lines and blank lines.
                                        if((myLine.substring(0,4)=="text")||(myLine.substring(0,4)=="grep")|| (myLine.substring(0,5)=="glyph")){
                                                  myFindChangeArray = myLine.split("\t");
                                                  //The first field in the line is the findType string.
                                                  myFindType = myFindChangeArray[0];
                                                  //The second field in the line is the FindPreferences string.
                                                  myFindPreferences = myFindChangeArray[1];
                                                  //The second field in the line is the ChangePreferences string.
                                                  myChangePreferences = myFindChangeArray[2];
                                                  //The fourth field is the range--used only by text find/change.
                                                  myFindChangeOptions = myFindChangeArray[3];
                                                  switch(myFindType){
                                                            case "text":
                                                                      myFindText(myObject, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindChangeOptions);
                                                                      break;
                                                            case "grep":
                                                                      myFindGrep(myObject, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindChangeOptions);
                                                                      break;
                                                            case "glyph":
                                                                      myFindGlyph(myObject, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindChangeOptions);
                                                                      break;
                              } while(myFindChangeFile.eof == false);
                              myFindChangeFile.close();
function myFindText(myObject, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindChangeOptions){
          //Reset the find/change preferences before each search.
          app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          var myString = "app.findTextPreferences.properties = "+ myFindPreferences + ";";
          myString += "app.changeTextPreferences.properties = " + myChangePreferences + ";";
          myString += "app.findChangeTextOptions.properties = " + myFindChangeOptions + ";";
          app.doScript(myString, ScriptLanguage.javascript);
          myFoundItems = myObject.changeText();
          //Reset the find/change preferences after each search.
          app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
function myFindGrep(myObject, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindChangeOptions){
          //Reset the find/change grep preferences before each search.
          app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          var myString = "app.findGrepPreferences.properties = "+ myFindPreferences + ";";
          myString += "app.changeGrepPreferences.properties = " + myChangePreferences + ";";
          myString += "app.findChangeGrepOptions.properties = " + myFindChangeOptions + ";";
          app.doScript(myString, ScriptLanguage.javascript);
          var myFoundItems = myObject.changeGrep();
          //Reset the find/change grep preferences after each search.
          app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
function myFindGlyph(myObject, myFindPreferences, myChangePreferences, myFindChangeOptions){
          //Reset the find/change glyph preferences before each search.
          app.changeGlyphPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          app.findGlyphPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          var myString = "app.findGlyphPreferences.properties = "+ myFindPreferences + ";";
          myString += "app.changeGlyphPreferences.properties = " + myChangePreferences + ";";
          myString += "app.findChangeGlyphOptions.properties = " + myFindChangeOptions + ";";
          app.doScript(myString, ScriptLanguage.javascript);
          var myFoundItems = myObject.changeGlyph();
          //Reset the find/change glyph preferences after each search.
          app.changeGlyphPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
          app.findGlyphPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
function myFindFile(myFilePath){
          var myScriptFile = myGetScriptPath();
          var myScriptFile = File(myScriptFile);
          var myScriptFolder = myScriptFile.path;
          myFilePath = myScriptFolder + myFilePath;
          if(File(myFilePath).exists == false){
                    //Display a dialog.
                    myFilePath = File.openDialog("Choose the file containing your find/change list");
          return myFilePath;
function myGetScriptPath(){
          try{
                    myFile = app.activeScript;
          catch(myError){
                    myFile = myError.fileName;
          return myFile;
This is a very useful and easy to maintain script which even people who cant write scripts (but know how to use regex) can do complex search replace mass replacements.
Would love to find something like this for FrameMaker 12 (as i can't write scripts myself).
regards
daniel

I have visited that site. The first item in the external link says: "You can also configure Firefox to automatically search for text when you type any characters outside of a text field. When typing in a text field these characters should show up in the text field and not trigger the Quick Find bar. "
What I am looking for is the exact opposite. Once my first search is entered in the text box, and the info comes back, I want to start typing the next symbol, and have it automatically show up in the text box, not the Quick Find box. That is how it was working up until a couple of months ago.

How do I find/replace italics in a PDF?

I would like to change all the italics in a PDF to a different font so they will be recognized when I convert the PDF to an InDesign file. Right now they're fake italics of an embedded font so when I convert the file they disappear and turn into regular text. I will be changing the fonts after I convert so I don't necessarily have to keep them an italic font, just something different so I'll be able to change them to italics later. I tried a couple sentences and made them Times New Roman instead of Janson Text 55 Roman and when I converted they stayed as Times New Roman and I was able to make them an italic font. Just wondering if there's a way to search the whole PDF and do a mass find/replace instead of scrolling through the whole novel and changing them manually?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

"... find/replace italics ..."
Ahh, sorry. You don't.
(in context of a word processing like activity).
Doing it manually with the "Edit Text & Images" tool?
Well, that't keep one out of mischief.
Be well...
Message was edited by: CtDave

Find/replace styles in Pages 5

In Pages '09, one can find a style, under the "Advanced" menu in the find/replace pop-up. I use this to prepare talks, writing my own comments in a different style than what I'll print and hand out. Thus, I find the style and replace it (with nothing), and be left with simply the text for the handout. Is there a way to use find/replace in Pages 5 to search and find a particular style? I can't find it. Thank you!

That is an extremely useful feature. I just was using that on a document to hand last night, searching on an expression and applying a style to it, Saved me hours of work. Not something Apple seems to get these days.
Nobody apparently is supposed to work on Macs anymore, just fiddle.
Viking is being modest, the count is over 110 known missing features and countless bugs or things that simply don't work as they are supposed to.
Thankfully there is still Pages '09! For now. Which should still be in your Applications/iWork folder.
Peter

Find & Replace window missing in Toolkit CS5

Hello--
I just started using Adobe ExtendScript Toolkit CS5 after installing Photoshop CS5, and ran into a strange problem: the Find & Replace menu option and key command do not function correctly, in that I cannot access Find at all. The Find / Find Results window does not appear, and I cannot get the window to appear by selecting the option in the Windows tool menu either. This works just fine in Toolkit CS4, and is very frustrating to deal with as I am trying to update my scripts to CS5, but have to do so in the CS4 Toolkit because I can't use the Find functionality.
I've already searched the forums and google high and low for this problem, but no else seems to have posted about it. I've already tried restarting and uninstalling / installing CS5 and all related tools. Can anyone help?
Thanks!

Thanks! Looking in the preferences led me to the answer to the problem: I opened up the XML file and found that findAndReplace was put in an odd TabPane for some reason:
        <TabGroup5>
          <activeChild>findAndReplace</activeChild>
          <parentName>Tabpane13</parentName>
          <visible>false</visible>
        </TabGroup5>
I changed the parentName to Tabpane0 and the window appears now. Much obliged!

Using Grep to find/replace

I'm trying to find out how to use GREP in find/replace to chage the formatting of some text that comes in from a spreadsheet.
I worked out the GREP query "~b(\d\d)~b", which finds a paragraph return, followed by two digits, followed by another paragraph return
and then it is replaced by "\t $1~b", which is a tab, the two found digits and a para return.
What i need to do is to amend the query to find ANY number of digits, (which may be comma delimited: eg 23, 36, 48 ,50), and then replace with a tab + found text.
I suppose what I'm looking for is a way for the query to find "any text between two paragraph returns, no matter what tthe length", but I don't know how to do this.All the Wildcard options seem to find just one exampler (one digit, one character etc)

And you came so far
The operators for repeat are ? (zero or once), * (zero or more) and + (once or more). You can also specify exact numbers: {at least,up to}.
All of these operators are "greedy" by default -- they will match as much as possible. To match as least as possible (which I'm sure you'll come up against, sooner or later), add another ? after the repeat expression.
So this will find one digit, then optionally another (which will always be included):
\d\d?
and this one digit, then zero or as much as ten million million zillion:
\d\d*
which is functionally the same as
\d+
And this will find between 3 and 8 digits but will forced to use the shortest possible match:
\d{3,8}?
That said: A quick & dirty solution for your actual problem is to find any amount of digits, spaces, and comma's:
~b[\d, ]+~b
(we need the plus here because otherwise it would also match an empty line). The [..] brackets an Inclusive list --- it will match any of the single codes inside.
A more complicated but 'neater' way is to search very specifically only for number, comma, space, number sequences -- it's neater because that way malformed lines (comma without a space) will be skipped!
(It also introduces another code -- the parentheses operators. Look them up in a good GREP reference --lost of people are enthousiastic about Peter Kahrel's O'Reilly title, because it's about using GREP in InDesign.)
~b\d+(, \d+)*~b

Microsoft Word API for Mac OS: Troubleshooting the Find/Replace function

In my previous topic at
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2623068&tstart=0
we found out the way to connect to the Ms-Word from Objective-C through ScriptingBridge.
The connection works and the given text can be found and replaced using the method executeFindFindText: Although it generates exception and I am forced to put it in @try block and then continue with everything else in @catch.
There is another, more important problem: the WordFind class does not seem to "give feedback" i.e. I could not find the way to programatically find out whether my find/replace was successfull, nor could I set WordFind object properties prior to running.
The Class WordFind has many properties e.g.
@property (copy) NSString *content; // Returns or sets the text in the find object.
@property (readonly) BOOL found; // True if the search produces a match.
@property BOOL matchWholeWord; // Returns or sets if the find operation locates only entire words and not text that's part of a larger word.
I tried to set the property "matchWholeWord" or read the properties "found" and "content" but in vain.
As I understand, the property "found" should be the key component in my process because it should
return the BOOL value I need.
What am I doing incorrectly? Any suggestions?
Here is the final code:
#import <Cocoa/Cocoa.h>
#import "Word.h"
int main(int argc, char * argv[])
if(NSApplicationLoad())
NSAutoreleasePool * pool = [[NSAutoreleasePool alloc] init];
wordApp=[SBApplication applicationWithBundleIdentifier:@"com.microsoft.Word"];
if([wordApp isRunning])
WordDocument *activeWordDoc=[wordApp activeDocument];
WordTextRange *allTextRange=[activeWordDoc textObject];
WordFind *findObj=[allTextRange findObject];
NSString findText=@"FirstText";
NSString *replaceText=@"SecondText";
[findObj setMatchWholeWord:YES];
NSLog(@"WholeWord: %i", [findObj matchWholeWord]);
@try
[findObj executeFindFindText:findText
matchCase:NO
matchWholeWord:NO
matchWildcards:YES
matchSoundsLike:NO
matchAllWordForms:NO
matchForward:YES
wrapFind:WordE265FindContinue
findFormat:NO
replaceWith:replaceText
replace:WordE273ReplaceAll];
@catch(NSException * e){
NSLog(@"Search Found:%i",[findObj found]);
NSLog(@"Search Content:%@",[findObj content]);
[pool drain];
return 0;

DavidMan wrote:
So, what is your suggestion?
Do it in pure AppleScript.
Whom to complain? Microsoft or Apple?
I'm not sure. All this stuff was new with Office 2008. It might work better with Office 2011. I would definitely ask on the Mac Office forum to see if anyone there knows any more: http://www.officeformac.com/productforums/

MS Word crashes when I do find/replace with the OS X 10.5.6

Does anyone know what I can do about MS Word crashing when I do a find and/or replace in a document? It happens constantly. The interesting thing is that is doesn't occur every single time I do find/replace but the SECOND time I use the feature. The only way I can manage to avoid the crash is to do find/replace, then exit out of the dialog box, and then open it up again. If I do a find/replace once and then continue using the same dialog box, Word crashes. Also, find/replace doesn't work most of the time.
This never happened when I was using Word with my older OS.
Help, please!!!
Many thanks.

Hmm...what about deleting the MS Word preferences? Does excel crash as well when doing the same function?
To delete the preference put this in spotlight:
com.microsoft.Word.plist
Move it to the desktop, restart and see if the problem persists.
It might be another preference that is the source of the problem.

Is there a way to Find & Replace within a selection?

I looked in the User Guide, but I didn't find any information on how to Find & Replace just within selected text. I can see how to do it for the entire document or do it one instance at a time. Is there a trick I'm missing, or is this a missing feature?

Hey Chuck,
I opened Pages and used its help menu and came up with this. It does not specifically mention anything about choosing just 1 paragraph or text box, but I hope it helps you none the less.
+Finding and Replacing Text+
+You can find every instance of a word or phrase in your document, and optionally change it to something else.+
+Here are ways to find and replace text:+
+Choose Edit > Find > Find, click Simple or Advanced to set up find/replace criteria, and then click a button to conduct find/replace operations.+
+Simple: In the Find field, type the text you want to find, and type any text you want to replace it with in the Replace field.+
+Advanced: In addition to typing Find and Replace text, you can set up additional find/replace criteria.+
+Replace All: Automatically conducts the find/replace operation without your review.+
+Replace: Replaces the current selection with the replacement text.+
+Replace & Find: Replaces the current selection with the replacement text and immediately finds the next occurrence of the Find text.+
+Next or Previous: Finds the next or previous occurrence of the Find text.+
+Use the other commands on the Edit > Find submenu.+
+Find Next or Find Previous: Finds the next or previous occurrence of the current Find text.+
+Use Selection for Find: Finds the next occurrence of the selected text.+
+Jump to Selection: Displays the selected text when it’s not currently in view.+
Adam

Automator--find, replace

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