Find/Change command! Me again!

Hi guys!
Any GREP style og text style for this, see the picture.
I need to center the > | < in a table, so all the prices will be centered and look nice, like in the table 2 !
HELP!

Sorry for the confusion.
First, you need to set either a character-aligned tab or a right-aligned tab where you want the | to appear in your cell.
You do this by setting the tab position in the paragraph style assigned to the text in the cells. Once that tab is set, your | will appear at that position when we are done.
Next it seems we need to explicitily put the first tab into the string, as well as the right indent tab, so we need to find all the text leading up to the | and put a tab in front of it, then the space after, then find the | and insert the right indent tab after.
If you have an empty cell and tab into it and start typing, your text will use any tab character that is set in the paragraph style, but you don't have that situation, so it's necessary to add the initial tab to your existing text string as well as to add the spaces around the | and get the second number right aligned. You do that in one operation using the GREP query (which looks like it didn't come through well) from above:
Find (.+)(\|)
the (.+) finds anything, and in this case the would find the entire contents of the cell, except that it's followed by the (\|) which finds the | cahracter, so you are finding first the text before the |, then the | itself.
Change \t$1~>$2~y (in case the form messes it up again, that's "dollar sign 1 tilde "greater than sign" [from over the period on the keyboard] dollar sign 2 tilde y")
\t is the tab character that needs to be in fron to the first set of numbers to align the |. $1 is the wildcard for the reult of waht was found by the expression in the fisrt set of parentheses (your first number). ~> (tilde greater than) is an en-space to use as a separator (you can use a differnt space here). $2 is the result of the search expression inthe second set of parentheses, the |. ~y (tilde y) is the right-indent tab used to right align the second number in the cell.

Similar Messages

Indesign - sorting tables or find/change commands

Hi there!
I don't think this is possible in Indesign but here is my question:
I have sorted a list of product names, numbers, prices in a table in the order they have to be in. (See 1. picture)
My question is: Are there any commands to tell indesign to sort a list after a another list/table? (See 2. picture)
I hope you understand!
2.

This might help:
http://dtptools.com/product.asp?id=atid
Bob

Date Find - Change

Is it possible to batch change dates in a spreadsheet? How would you change the month on a row of dates Ex: 05/02/08, 05/15/08, etc. to 06/02/08, 06/15/08, etc. I've tried the find change command with dates in many formats (mm/dd/yy; m/dd; May 2, 2008; May 2, etc) with no success.

I though I should be brief in posting my question but after the spanking I just received, I'll give more details of what I did before I posted my question so that you'll see all that I tried before asking for help.
1. Last month I searched through the Help in the Numbers application and did not find a solution.
2. Last month I posted my question to another user group that I belong to and no one could answer because they stated they did not have that much experience with Numbers.
3. Tonight I tried the application's Help, but still no answers.
4. Tonight I decided to give Apple Discussions a try. I searched 'Find/Change' under Numbers and received 113 hits. I read every single one of the posts. While none spoke directly about changing 'Dates', I tried the items discussed such as changing to text 360, making changes, then back to numeric, but this did not work for me either.
5. I tried changing my dates to all the various formats and again, no effects.
6. And during all my attempts I also tried the various options (next, find and replace, replace, etc.) alone or in combinations.
7. I came back to the Apple Discussions and posted my question.
And regarding the way I posted my question, I felt I should post a new Topic under Numbers since Dates was not part of the 113 discussions on Find/Change. Also, since the original question was different than mine I felt I might "get in trouble" for posting within that discussion. I see I was wrong, so yes, my newbie status of 2 posts is my excuse.

Find/Change HELP

Hi,
Anyone know the code for find/change command on text for specific pages?
Example: I want to change some text from page 20 to 40 -
Please help

There is no such code.
You can select all the text you want and apply your changes to "Selection" only. (Of course you can only select contiguous text -- that is, all of the text frames should belong to a single running story.)

Find/change delete before something

I need a find/change command for this:
SWEDEN_DKK
FIND _
And delete: SWEDEN_
so it ends with only SEK
Thanks!

… We always think to search what we don't want to keep ! but sometimes it's easier to find what we want to keep !
For that, I use a grep style (what I want to keep!), 2 conditions (Invisible [what I don't want to keep!] ; Visible [what I want to keep!]) applied with 2 simple research.
Then, just click in the Conditions panel! [I recognize it's a way that can be more complex but useful. So don't forget Conditions!]
[ After that, if you really want to delete the "invisible" text, just search the condition and replace by nothing ! DONE! ]

Subcript using find/change

Hi I am trying to change for eg: H2O to H2(subscript)O using the find/change command. It doesn't work. Can anyone help?

Ted, Peter and John,
As Ted, I make scientific books. Such expression is rather treated as an equation with MathType or MathMagic editors. So this kind of question does not arise, for me. The treatment is done, eg, with a TeX syntax as: ${H}_{2}O$.
I've created a lot of grep search/replace to do this. Eg: find H2O, CH4, SO4/2- … and replace by the good TeX syntax so that we can finally obtain MathMagic equations.
SO4/2- is interesting: SO, normal, 4 (subscript), 2- (superscript with - using a special math MMTimes font), one under the other.
Difficult too to treat with ID a formula where H2O is, eg, all in subscript!
Easier to write it with MathMagic and, fortunately, a lot of "formulas" will be treated by search/replace as:
search H2O
replace by: ${H}_{2}O$
Good night! (22h 20, in France)

When I use Find Font command from Type menu, the overprint fill changed!

Can any one tell why the overprint fill attribute checked when I use Find Font from Type menu to simple change the font.
Try this Illustrator file from this URL:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0BysC4QT512vCY2YzZDRkMGEtMjNmMy00MDE2LWFmNzQtNTBhNDQ5MTBlO Dk1
and change the font of letter B in the illustration using Find Font command to and font and notice how the overprint fill changed from uncheched to checked.

The problem happens here, even if I first change the color to CMYK 0000 prior to using find font.
Anything we need to know about the history of this file, was it originally a pdf, or those text objects.
Manually changing the font does not turn overprint on, Find Font is toggling the overprint value in the code for this probably due to somehting abnormal in the code, or maybe be associated to this font's name triggers this glitch.

What changed in the Find/Change Object behavior?

In Indesign CS4 all graphics in a document could be centered through the Find/Change feature (Object tab) by leaving the Find field blank and setting the Change field to "Fitting Reference Point: Center" (clicking the center button). This no longer works in CS5. The feedback is of x number of objects changed, but none have.
It was handy, now it's gone.

No objects locked.
Actually, it seems stranger.
(BTW- The CS4 version is running on a Power Mac G5, pre-intel, Tiger.
The CS5 Version is on a Power Mac G5, Intel, Snow Leopard.)
If a single graphic is dragged or placed in the document, the Find/Change, as described, does nothing. When a second one is added, it works as expected, unless they are both jpegs or PSDs. In that case, they sometimes, disappear completly and are shown to be (in the links panel) on the pasteboard but not visible there. But, get this, add a pdf or AI file to the doc, and run it again and it works fine again. The revese order also applies. If I delete all but one graphic it stops working again.
In all cases the fitting commands work fine.
It seems as if there is some confusion in how the document object model is being addressed and filetype is in the mix.

Finished script: Use grep find/change to fill in a supplied table of contents

This script is now complete, and has been the subject of most of my previous posts. Just in case anyone wanted to know what the finished script ended as, here it is.
Thanks so much to all. A lot of really helpful folks on this board are very responsible for the success of this task. This script is to be one of hopefully many in the creation of our records. But it's a huge leap forward. Thanks again to everyone that helped.
Cheers,
~Nate
Task:
Automatically find town names in listings, and fill in table of contents template on page 2 accordingly.
Example of page 2 toc, initially:
Example of a page of content. The town names are what need to be referenced on the TOC:
Example of page 2 toc once script is finished:
Because of the need to include the transaction dates on the TOC (comes as a provided, tagged-text file), a simple Indesign-generated TOC can't be used alone.
This script uses an Indesign-generated TOC that's on a master page called "T-tocGen" ... It then uses grep search and replaces to grab the needed information, and insert it into the page 2 TOC.
The script will update a generated TOC and then search for an instance of a page number, and town name. The generated toc lists all included towns in the following format:
(line start)## tab townName(line end)
In Grep, this would be (please note, extra \ for \d and \t ... javascript needs that for some reason):
^\\d+\\t(.*)$
After the script gets the info it needs from a found instance of the above, it replaces that line with "---", to prevent that line from being picked up once again.
The script with then place the needed page number in it's rightful place on page 2, replacing the XX.
A while loop is used to repeat the above process until there are no longer any instances of "^\\d+\\t(.*)$" present.
Not every town runs every issue, so once the script is done, it removes all remaining instance of "XX" on the page 2 TOC.
FINAL CODE:
TOC replace
This script will use grep find/change methods to apply page numbers in
tocGen to the XX's on page2TOC.
// define the text frame of generated TOC
    var tocGenFrame = document.masterSpreads.item("T-tocGen").pages.item(0).textFrames.item(0);
// udpate generated TOC ... store contents in tocGenStuff
    var tocGenStuff = updateTOCGen();
// set variable for while loop
var okGo = "1";
// while okGo isn't 0
while(okGo.length!=0)
// get town info from tocGen
getCurrentTown();
// replace XX's with tocGen info
replaceTown();
// grep find ... any remaining towns with page numbers in tocGen?
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "^\\d+\\t(.*)$";
// set current value of okGo ... with any instances of above grep find in tocGen
okGo = tocGenFrame.findGrep();
// grep find/change all leftover XXs in page2TOC
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "^XX\\t";
app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = "\\t";
app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
// clear grep prefs
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
// functions                  //
function getCurrentTown()
// grep options
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeHiddenLayers = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeMasterPages = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeFootnotes = true;
// grep find: startLine anyDigits tab anyCharacters endLine
      app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
      app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "^\\d+\\t(.*)$";
// get grep find results
currentGen = tocGenFrame.findGrep();
// store grep results content into currentLine
currentLine = currentGen[0].contents;
// match to get array of grep found items
currentMatch = currentGen[0].contents.match("^\\d+\\t(.*)$");
// second found item is town name, store as currentTown
currentTown = currentMatch[1];
// change current line to --- now that data has been grabbed
// this is because loop will continue as long as the above grep find yields a result
       app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "^\\d+\\t"+currentTown+"$";
              app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = "---";
            tocGenFrame.changeGrep();
function replaceTown()
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeHiddenLayers = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeMasterPages = true;
app.findChangeGrepOptions.includeFootnotes = true;
// find: XX currentTown .... replace with: currentLine
    app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "^XX\\t"+currentTown+" \\(";
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = currentLine+" \(";
app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
function updateTOCGen()
//set vars ... toc text frame, toc master pag
    var tocGen = document.masterSpreads.item("T-tocGen").pages.item(0).textFrames.item(0);
    var tocGenPage = document.masterSpreads.item("T-tocGen").pages.item(0);
//SELECT the text frame generatedTOC on the master TOC
    tocGen.select();
//Update Table of Contents by script menu action:
    app.scriptMenuActions.itemByID(71442).invoke();
//Deselect selection of text frame holding your TOC:
    app.select(null);
//store contents of toc text frame in variable
    var tocGenText = tocGen.contents;
//return contents of tocGen
    return tocGenText;

Thanks for the reply.
You are correct but the problem is there are three rows, One row is 100% black, the second is 60% black and the third is 40% black. I want to change the black to blue, the 60% black to an orange and the 40% black to a light shaded blue. In the find/change option you can select the tint you want to find and replace but yea.. does work on table cells.. oddly enough.

Find/change using end of paragraph marker /p

Folks,
We are attempting to remove a space at the end of a paragraph in unstructured documents. If I enter ' \p' in the Find text field in the Find/Change dialog FrameMaker finds the the appropriate paragraphs. If I then enter '\p' in the Change text field in the Find/Change dialog and click Change the space is removed. However the target paragraphs style is also applied to the the following paragraph. This occurs in FrameMaker 8,9 & 10.
If the Find/Change scenario above is followed with these two paragraphs the first paragraphs style is applied to the second paragraph.
paragraph 1 with a trailing space and using Heading 1 style
paragraph 2 using Heading 2 style
Any thoughts?
regards
Jon

JonEBe wrote:
Arnis,
Thanks!
Yes why bother indeed! I am at the end of a rather lengthy process to convert the creation and output of Framemaker documents into a database with a web front end. As part of this the existing documents are imported to save lengthy keying/rekeying. The output from the system is then compared against the originals. As a matter of course I stripped of leading or trailing spaces (it is amazing how many there are in a manually created/updated document) so we therefore have noisy comparison documents as a result.
BTW the trailing spaces are apparently a legacy of the conversion from WordPerfect.
My choices are to re-import without stripping the trailing space and remove them at a later date or create a script using the FDK, which I am very familiar with, and is the likely outcome!
Jon
Just a wild thought - a real GREP processor, not the mild imitation in FrameMaker, can find a construction like a space followed by a paragraph marker and delete the space without affecting the marker. The technique is a form of the "lookbehind" or "lookahead" feature. I'm zero-skilled at actually doing this beyond just mentioning it, but the technique might work in a MIF, or text conversion, of the file. Search Google for terms like "GREP lookbehind lookahead," without quotes.
Another possibility is that once the FrameMaker file is converted to the database, it would be possible to use a database command to remove the space.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Applescript find/change problem

I have some text which needs to be styled in InDesign CS4 which has a bunch of extraneous tags ( eg. , , etc.). I have customised the FindChangeList.txt file that supports the FindChangeByList.applescript file to do things like:
{find what:""}
{change to:"^S"}
which can then be picked up by a nested style. All good so far.
Problem: the applescript will just not 'see' the strings or in FindChangeList.txt. It treats them like they aren't there. I can do it using the find/replace within InDesign, it works fine there, but my problem is that I have hundreds of pieces of copy to import and I'd like to automate as much as possible. Using GREP has the same effect, ie. works in find/replace within InDesign, but not with applescript.
Any help would be greatly appreciated as this is really killing me at the moment. Thanks!
Content of FindChangeList.txt follows. The command in the final line works, the command in the second-last line doesn't.
(FYI the second line of code contains 'InDesign CS3' regardless of whether I use CS3 or CS4. I guess they didn't update the file)
--FindChangeList.txt
--A support file for the InDesign CS3 AppleScript FindChangeByList.applescript
--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 {find what:"--"} {change to:"^_"} {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false} Find all double dashes and replace with an em dash.
--More complex example:
--text {find what:"^9^9.^9^9"} {applied character style:"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 "find what" and "change to" properties.
text {find what:""} {change to:"^S"} {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false} Find all bold and replace with non-breaking space.
text {find what:""} {change to:"^S"} {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false} Find all italics and replace with non-breaking space.

You probably should post this in the ID Scripting forum. Here's an example of some simple AppleScript find and changes that might help:
--find and replace keyboard formating
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS5.5"
 --first clear the preferences
 set find text preferences to nothing
 set change text preferences to nothing
 --replaces non breaking space with space
 set find what of find text preferences to "^s"
 set change to of change text preferences to "<0020>"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces soft return with return
 set find what of find text preferences to "^n"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^p"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces return space with return
 set find what of find text preferences to "^p<0020>"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^p"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces 2 returns with return
 set find what of find text preferences to "^p^p"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^p"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces return, tab, return with return
 set find what of find text preferences to "^p^t^p"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^p"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces space, return with return
 set find what of find text preferences to "<0020>^p"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^p"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces space, space with space
 set find what of find text preferences to "<0020><0020>"
 set change to of change text preferences to "<0020>"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces 3 tabs with tab
 set find what of find text preferences to "^t^t^t"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^t"
 set myFoundItems to change text
 --replaces 2 tabs with tab
 set find what of find text preferences to "^t^t"
 set change to of change text preferences to "^t"
 set myFoundItems to change text
end tell

JS:CS3 Newbie needs help! find/change character styles

I'm new to scripting and JavaScript is giving me a headache, but I'll keep trying. What I'm trying to do is automate a few things so that the production time of our school newspaper is reduced while insuring accuracy.
I've played around a little with the text find change sample and the changing or adding paragraph styles in the InDesignCS3_ScriptingGuide_JS.pdf and I barely understand what I'm doing.
When us page designers receive text to place in the document, our editors mark the text with tags like: text, where the word "text" is to be bolded. (there wouldn't any spaces between < and b and > etc. I just did that so It'll show up here). We have basic character styles and paragraph styles set up, and we just started working with nested styles.
Is there a way we can search for the tag and bold everything after it up until the tag? Sort of the way it does for html (the way it would do for this message if I took out the spaces). It'll be great if it could remove the tags as well, but if not, I know I could create a find/change script to do the removal afterwards.
I appreciate any input.
Thanks!

You've not found yourself the easiest of tasks! You need GREP find/replace, not text. Do you have any experience with GREP? It's worth investigating, it's a powerful feature. The script below handles bold. For clarity, it doesn't do any error checking: it assumes that there's a document with text in it and that the document contains a character style called 'bold'.
// talk to Indesign, nobody else
#target indesign
// reset the Find/Change dialog
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
// find everything between and (including these codes)
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '.+?';
// add 'bold' style
app.changeGrepPreferences.appliedCharacterStyle = 'bold';
// make the changes
app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
// now delete the and codes
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = '</?b>';
app.changeGrep();
You can adapt it easily to handle other codes, and at a later stage you could generalise it so that you needn't repeat whole bunches of code.
Good luck with your first forays. Again, it's not the easiest of tasks, but it's worth getting to grips with.
Peter

[JS CS3] How to load Find/Change dialog?

Hello,
Below is a script that uses GREP to find straight apostrophies and then change them to smart (curly) ones. The script invokes the Find/Change dialog so that the user can see what she or he is doing.
However, if the user last used the Find/Change dialog in the TEXT mode, that is the mode that appears. I want the script to go to the GREP mode. I see that there is code for app.loadFindChangeQuery(queryName, searchMode), but I have no idea what the "queryName" is and how to use it in this script.
Thanks for any help.
Tom
theGrepLoader("~'", "~]");
function theGrepLoader(grepFindIt, grepChangeIt){
    app.findGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
    app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
    app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = grepFindIt;
    app.changeGrepPreferences.changeTo = grepChangeIt;
    app.menuActions.item("Find/Change...").invoke();
}//end theGrepLoader

Thanks, Peter!
I appreciate your help but I have found another solution. I am amazed at my own stupidity sometimes. You see, I do my scripting in a very lame sort of way because I have never used Javascript outside of InDesign. As such, I find myself at a disadvantage because the documentation that Adobe provides assumes that you are aware of many of the basics. Case in point: I have always had trouble manipulating strings because I NEVER KNEW that you could search and replace strings! I just could not find examples of this in the Adobe documentation. So here I was in some cases adding temporary textFrames so I could get to my strings as text contents and then removing the temporary textFrames at the end of the script. In this particular case I needed to merge several paragraphs into one paragraph. Now that I know how to search & replace strings, it is so simple to strip away all the paragraph returns (which are included in text contents). I am learning, albeit rather slowly. Thanks again.
Regards,
Len Swierski

[AS] CS3 Find -Change inserting soft return instead of hard

Can anyone help identify why this script doesn't work? i want it to replace multiple returns with a single paragraph return. It's replacing with a soft return rather than a hard return.
I copied and pasted the find grep and change grep fields into the script. I even tried it by typing "\r" into the change grep field. Any thoughts? Much appreciated!
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS3"
--Clear the find/change preferences.
set find grep preferences to nothing
set change grep preferences to nothing
set find text preferences to nothing
set change text preferences to nothing
--Set the find options.
set include footnotes of find change grep options to false
set include hidden layers of find change grep options to false
set include locked layers for find of find change grep options to false
set include locked stories for find of find change grep options to false
set include master pages of find change grep options to false
--delete multiple graphs
set find what of find grep preferences to "~b~b+"
set change to of change grep preferences to "
set myStory to parent story of item 1 of selection
tell myStory
set myFoundItems1 to change grep
end tell
set find grep preferences to nothing
set change grep preferences to nothing
end tell

Shane, thanks! This worked. What I meant to have written was that when copying "~b" from the find/change field in InDesign and pasting into Script Editor, and saving, it converted it automatically to a hard return. I didn't try it manually because sometimes the obvious is elusive! (to me at least)
Thanks again.
Jim

JS for Find/Change

I am a novice with JS, but trying to make a couple of enhancements to workflow using scripting. I have managed to figure most things out ok, but usually just need a little kickstart. What I am trying to do is:
InDesign CS2
Find a specific sequence of characters in a text selection (in this case, " - " (that is space dash space) and replace with end of nested style & forced line break (^h^n). At the same time, search for double carriage returns and change to single carriage returns (^p^p => ^p).
Currently, using the Find/Change Function from the Edit menu but I'd like to be able to just apply a script to do it all. I have tried to dig through the archives for a similar posting, but haven't had a lot of luck. If anyone can please point me in the right direction, it would most certainly be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance.
-Scott

Thank you Peter ... I have just purchased the electronic version of the O'Reilly book that you recommend. This will certainly help.
One thing that is not clear ... can I use characters such as "^p" or "^h" directly when setting my parameters, or is there a unicode equivalent that I would need to use?
Thanks again.
-Scott

Find/Change command! Me again!

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