Grep find/replace to clean-up texts
Hi,
I want to use The ID GREP find/replace to clean-up a imported text with at every line a carriage/return (CR).
(space)CR -> (space)
a_wordCR -> aword(space)
CRCR -> CR
How can I perform this with Grep expressions ?
Thanks
In the first and 3rd replaces, you want a CR replaced with nothing; in the 2nd one, with a space. So it's not possbile to do this with one single "magic" search and replace -- Grep is not magic
This query will take care of the returns:
(?<=[\r ])\r
(replace with nothing). It finds returns with at their left either a return or a single space.
This one
(?<=\w)\r
(replace with space) will change a return after a word character to a space. "Word character" is a bit undefined -- it appears to be at least A-Z (including accented characters), 0-9, and Greek/Cyrillic characters. In case of a problem, you could try
(?<=[[:alpha:]])\r
instead -- forcing 'alphabetic' characters only.
Similar Messages
-
[GREP] – find/replace only first comma in paragraph
Is it possible to find and replace only the first comma in paragraph with certain paragraph style with end of paragraph character using GREP search? Or in other words – to split paragraph into two paragraphs by replacing the first comma in paragraph with end of paragraph character?
ClaudiusThat's an interesting problem, and I think it takes at least two steps.
The expression (^[^,]+),\s* will find all text from the beginning of a paragraph up to the first comma, which might be followed by whitespace and allows you to use the $1 operator in the change to field to save the text up to the comma, but replace the comma and following whitespace with anything you like. However, as soon as you replace that with a paragraph break you've created a new paragraph to search and you end up breaking at every comma.
Instead you need to insert a stand-in symbol of some sort with a unique character style applied (so it won't get picked up any other way), for instance change to $1% and apply the style named "break" which does no formatting but flags the text for the next search.
Now search for % with the "break" style and replace with the paragragh break (and no style).
You should probably now search for .+ with the break style and change to nothing (or $0 for found text), and remove the style, just to be clean.
There's still one problem, though, and that's that all the new paragraphs start with a lower-case character unless the first word after the comma happened to be capitalized. You could now search for ^. to find the first character in each paragraph and use the change format to apply a character style that assigns all caps, but that's really an ugly way to work.
All of this will fall apart, too, I think if you have nested or GREP styles affecting the beginning text or the first character in any paragraph that you wind up with. -
Applying Bolds and Italics while doing a Find/Replace on Data Merged content
Hi,
Wonder if you kind knowledgeable folks can help me with a Find/Replace question.
I am doing a data merge of a book contents into indesign, where my data merge file is a straightforward text csv file which is tab delimited. I have two (almost similar) things I would like to do to specific parts of the text but don't know how to achieve this.
- Firstly, I would like to preserve words/sentences with an 'italic' form but this is obviously lost in a csv file. Is there anyway I can mark these words in order that a find/replace can make this word italics. Im hoping there is a solution which resembles something like this;
eg. Book content is "The Word Italic needs to be adjusted".
Original content is amended to be "The Word $Italic$ needs to be adjusted", so that a dollar sign encapsulates the word to be made Italic.
Then I am able to data merge the csv file and somehow do a find/replace of words/sentences which are encapsulated by the dollar sign. Thus, doing a find/replace of all words/sentences which satisfy this condition and then apply italics to all words between the dollar signs.
- My other issue is I am using the '|' character in my text to determine the paragraph seperators. I then do a find/replace after importing the text to replace all instances of '|' to the paragraph seperator (a kind of $ symbol, a representative character from the pop-up menu to the right of the Change To box). This works fine, but I'd like to make the paragraph seperator to be a BOLD format so that it can distinguish better the seperating sections of text.
But this is different from my 'italics' issue above since I am trying to apply a BOLD format to the 'Change to' character, rather than something which exists in my original csv.
Hope I make sense but I'd be happy to provide screenshots etc (when I get home )
Best Rgds
Ltwo solutions.
for the italic solution, i'd say the OP answered his own question with one exception - don't use dollar symbols, instead use = or another character which isn't reserved by GREP.
the solution i would use for italics would be a GREP search once the merge is complete. have a look at the picture to see what i've done.
the second solution: GREP styles.
this assumes that the text will have a paragraph style assigned to it. make a character style called BOLD and within that style, the only thing to change is within basic character formats, make the font style bold. could even make the character another colour such as cyan so it is more easily idenfiable.
next, go to the paragraph style options, go to GREP styles and match the following screengrab
the advantage with a GREP style is that once the pipe symbol (|) is replaced, its bold GREP style character formatting is lost; and it means less post processing and no need for a second search of the text - it's all live. -
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 -
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 -
Why not there a "Find/replace in Grep style" inside the Para style?
Whenever I type a digit in my text, it should be colored red as per style. I do this by grep style inside the para style, but now I need to insert brackets before and after of the digit(s), i realize that there is no replace option in grep style in the para style. Why not it be there a "find/replace" instead "find" only as it now appears?
Ya, this is simple, finding a specific para style with digit and change them, when the book in first pass. But while in the correction pass of the same book, whenever we are inserting more text into the document, there are chances to be unaware of the digit style that, it should be surrounded by brackets, and it happened earlier so I have a thought of it. Again, while paginating a book having more than 350 - 600 pages, and 3 to 4 guys working in it, I think this may work.
Expecting your valuable comment on this.
Thangaraj Mohan. -
Find & Replace the text and apply paragraph style in indesign CS2.
Hai below script are working in cs4 - cs5.5. i need to run the script in indesign cs2.
can you please help.
Main();
function Main() {
var foundItem;
var doc = app.activeDocument;
//app.findTextPreferences = app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = "^p";
//app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = "head";
var foundItems = doc.findText();
for (var i = 0; i < foundItems.length; i++) {
foundItem = foundItems[i];
foundItem.applyParagraphStyle(doc.paragraphStyles.item("content body indent"), false);
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
//Clear the find/change text preferences.
app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
//Set the find options.
app.findChangeTextOptions.caseSensitive = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeFootnotes = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeHiddenLayers = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeMasterPages = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.wholeWord = false;
//Search the document for the string "copy" and change it to "text".
app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = "^p";
app.changeTextPreferences.changeTo = "^p";
myDocument.changeText();
//Clear the find/change text preferences after the search.
app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
abc();
function abc() {
var foundItem;
var doc = app.activeDocument;
//app.findTextPreferences = app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = "*";
//app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = "head";
var foundItems = doc.findText();
for (var i = 0; i < foundItems.length; i++) {
foundItem = foundItems[i];
foundItem.applyParagraphStyle(doc.paragraphStyles.item("RealEstate"), false);
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
//Clear the find/change text preferences.
app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
//Set the find options.
app.findChangeTextOptions.caseSensitive = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeFootnotes = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeHiddenLayers = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeMasterPages = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.wholeWord = false;
//Search the document for the string "copy" and change it to "text".
app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = "*";
app.changeTextPreferences.changeTo = "";
myDocument.changeText();
//Clear the find/change text preferences after the search.
app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
ab();
function ab () {
var foundItem;
var doc = app.activeDocument;
app.findTextPreferences = app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = " ^ ";
app.changeTextPreferences.changeTo = " ";
//app.findTextPreferences.appliedParagraphStyle = "head";
var foundItems = doc.findText();
for (var i = 0; i < foundItems.length; i++) {
foundItem = foundItems[i];
foundItem.applyParagraphStyle(doc.paragraphStyles.item("day"), false);
app.findGrepPreferences = app.changeGrepPreferences = NothingEnum.NOTHING;
var myDocument = app.activeDocument;
//Clear the find/change text preferences.
app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
//Set the find options.
app.findChangeTextOptions.caseSensitive = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeFootnotes = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeHiddenLayers = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeLockedLayersForFind = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeLockedStoriesForFind = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.includeMasterPages = false;
app.findChangeTextOptions.wholeWord = false;
//Search the document for the string "copy" and change it to "text".
app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = "^";
app.changeTextPreferences.changeTo = "";
myDocument.changeText();
//Clear the find/change text preferences after the search.
app.findTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;
app.changeTextPreferences = NothingEnum.nothing;@s_ashok – you'll find the right methods and properties in the CHM file for InDesign CS2 at:
http://www.jongware.com/idjshelp.html
Just a few hints:
InDesign CS2 does not support GREP search/replace, so every line in your code that points to GREP does not work.
Further: "app.findTextPreferences" and "app.changeTextPreferences" were "app.findPreferences" and "app.changePreferences" in InDesign CS2. And then there were no "findChangeTextOptions" or any counterpart for that in CS2…
That should get you running…
I have no InDesign CS2 installed to debug, so this is all I can say…
Uwe -
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 -
GREP 'find/change' by list script: find a text string containing different para styles
Hi
I'm don't write scripts but do 'enjoy' copying, pasting and changing existing code/txt files.
I have built a GREP find/change .txt that performs a large number of text edits/changes.
But I'm left with an issue where I have paragraphs of text (styled earlier in the .txt file) that I'm unable to identify using GREP the usual way. I need to identify text in a particular paragraph style, followed by text in another paragraph style.
Is it possible with GREP to create a search string to find: text styled with one paragraph style, ending with a paragraph return, and to include in that selection the following paragraph/s styled with another paragraph style?
MTIA Steveseb400 napisał(-a):
What do you mean by I would mark "changing" in "copying, pasting and changing"?
Hi Steve,
I mean I can see a way by modifying some existing code with "find...change" job
1. set criteria to findGrep
2. store findGrep() in an array
3. check each found object if next paragraph matches some new criteria
4. run changeGrep() if true
Jarek -
Copy alt text to title [Branched from: WildCard Find & Replace Question]
Fabulous, so now I am able to add the code (alt=" ") to any image that does not already have one. Now is there a way to do a similar task AND have the replace function fill in the text based on existing info.?
My situation is I have images with alt text AND now have to add title info. to the image (title=" ") that is a duplicate of the alt text.
SO, is there a way to tell the system to find all alt text tags and replace them with alt text and title tag, where the title tag is a duplicate of the alt info.?
FIND alt="*.*"
REPLACE with alt="*.*" title="*.*"
I tried *.* and that does not work.Ok, thank you for the reminder about how a screen reader reads things. I am passing that along to my cohorts. A piece of the puzzle that may help is our reasoning for adding the title tag to images is that in IE8 browser the alt text is not always popping up when a user scrolls over the image, and by placing the title tag into the code then the text entered for the title tag does pop up when user scrolls over the image. Is there another/better way to do this?
FYI - So I tried the method you suggested and below is the original code AND then the resulting code. The results only added the info. entered in the replace box verbatim and didn’t copy the alt text and place it in the title tag. It even overwrote my existing alt text.:
Original code –
img alt="US 8 (WIS 35 - US 53) Corridor Preservation overview/location map" height="220" src="images/map-overview.gif" width="300"
img alt="Map key - Thick orange line is the project overview/location, thin purple and green lines are project segments, and the blue tear drop with dot in center are the project boundaries." height="174" src="../../images/map-keymultiseg.gif" width="271"
Resulting code –
img alt="$1" height="220" src="images/map-overview.gif" title="$1" width="300"
img alt="$1" height="174" src="../../images/map-keymultiseg.gif" title="$1" width="271" -
Text or GREP find/change method to assign tags
Hi all
I could use a text or GREP find/change method to assign tags to paragraph styles (for use in FindChangeByList), would anyone be able to help please?
SteveHi Peter
I produce a quarterly magazine for which text is supplied in Word format.
I currently run the 'FindChangeByList' script to format body text, headings, bulleted and numbered lists, web and email address text styling and to remove/correct all extraneous characters etc.
Once the job is printed I need to produce a tagged 'accessible' readable (eg: read out loud function in Acrobat) pdf from the file, for text to speech readers.
I am currently using the map tags to styles function, which allows me to assign tags which in turn gives me control of the 'text reading' order.
What I'd like to be able to do is automatically apply the Tags to syles while processing the 'FindChangeByList' script.
Steve -
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
danielI 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. -
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. -
How do I 'Find & Replace' with control characters - paragraph, carriage return, tab
In Pages 4.3 (Pages '09) I could insert special characters into the Find & Replace fields. It was great. Excellent way to clean up & recover text from a pdf or html.
In Pages 5.2 that capability seems to be gone. When I turn on the special characters [Show Invisibles - shift-cmd-I], I can highlight said invisible, copy it, then paste it into the Find&Replace field. Nope. It goes in as a space, and the Find command only finds spaces. Not the invisible that I was looking for.
This was a major feature for me, folks. Much better than Word's approach. Now it is gone (I fear), and the Find & Replace is worse than Word's.
How can I recover/attain this feature?I have struggled to find this "feature" for a while.
It CANNOT be that Apple stripped out a core capability of even a basic text editor.
Apple, a reply here because this is a F%$#$%^ joke if true. -
Say I want to replace all [ with << and ] with >>. However, I only want to replace the brackets where a # occurs between them. Here are two examples:
[Carfrae, 2006 #2959]
[A]
I would like to have the brackets repalced in the first isntance only. The text within the brackets should remain as is in all instances.
How would I go about it? Thanks for your help.
S.Sorry for being out of the loop all day. I wasn't hiding unless you call trying to find a golf ball in the woods hiding. I will try to answer some of the questions raised.
The solution I posted was written precisely for the example given. GREP finds patterns of text so one must define the "pattern" in order to create the GREP Expression.
? has a variety of meanings depending on how it is ussed
? = zero or One Time
?? = zero or One Time shortest match
+? = one or more times shortest match
?i = case insensitive On
Fortunately all of these metacharacters are contained in the numerous fly out menus associated with GREP Find/Change so we need no memorize them, only learn the effect that they have in a search.
Original Post:
(\[)(\w+,\s\d+\s#\d+)(\])
CHANGE:
$2
Search divided into three components -- each separated by (---)
The first (----) looks for a closed bracket (since [ and ] have "special" meaning in GREP we need to precede them with a backslash to indicate we want to find the literal occurrence of the Bracket(s)
the Second (-----) looks for any word character \w
one or more times +
followed by a comma ,
then a space \s
then the literal # (# has no special meaning in GREP so # finds #)
followed by any character \d
appearing one or more times +
the third (----) finds the Closed Bracket
In the Change
$2 indicates the desired change will be made to the second found "section" and the Open and Closed Brackets will disappear.
If Change read
$0 that means change applies to ALL found items
$1 means the change applies to what is found in first division ie- Open Bracket
$2 means the change applies to what is found in second division
$3 would apply the change to the third --ie Closed Bracket
The use of "shortest match" deals with GREP's penchant for being Greedy. I won't explain here but suffice it to say for starters that GREP thinks in terms of paragraphs so when it has a search expression that has a potential for being greedy and therefore find too much - its appetite stops at a carriage return.
The solution tendered worked with the example by including required characters that did not appear in the bracketed material not desired to be found. That having been said there are likely a number of ways to write an expression that would have the same effect. I stop when I have found whatever works and consider myself lucky.
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