GREP for changing paragraph style?

Question

Okay folks, I have another one for all you smart people out there. I think GREP can be used to change formatting in the following instance, but I have no idea how to set it up.
I have a very long document, essentially a phone book-type listing of names, phone numbers, addresses, well over 150 pages' worth. The paragraph styles are fairly simple, only two per listing. The name/phone number is bold with a right hand tab with leader dots to a phone number that is flush to the right side of the column. The following lines are flush left, not bold, but indented 6pts. I've placed the text file and assigned the entire thing the NameListing paragraph style. I'd like to use GREP to find the address lines and change them to the NameListingAddress paragraph style.
Here's a screen shot to give you an idea. The left column is formatted correctly with both styles, the right column is "raw", all paragraphs formatted with the NameListing paragraph style.
Is this an appropriate application for GREP? If so, how do I set it up to only change the paragraphs that "don't have tabs"? It would save me a crapload of time.
THANKS again! --Dina

Answer 1

If your intent here is to use the character style to trigger a variable, as I belive it is based on your other thread, you MUST apply the character style up to the first tab to pick up the text at the start of the paragraph. There are two approaches to automating the formatting after that, but it may be too late for you to be much help.
In cases where every listing has the same number of lines it makes sense to use a unique paragraph style name (not necessarily format -- base on on another) for each lline and make it its own paragraph. Set up "next styles" to rotate through the list so each line is assigned the correct style based on the style of its predecessor. You get the rotation to sart over by making the first line style the next style for the last line. This works for manual entry and can be applied to an entire block of placed text in a single operation by selecting the text, then right-clicking the name of the first style to be applied and choose Apply <stylename>, Then Next Style.This ONLY works if you have exactly the same number of paragraphs in each listing.
The other option is to use forced line breaks instread of paragraphs and use one style for the entire listing. Set a left indent and negative first line indent, create a character style for the part of the first line that you want to appear in your header and apply it Up To ^t^n (that's a little-known trick -- if you enter more than one character in the trigger for a nested style it will activate on the first instance of any of the characters listed that occurs, so for example if you enter the word cat, your style will end on the first, c, a or t that appears inthe paragraph. ^t is the metacharacter for tab, and ^n is for forced line break) so that the style will end at either the tab, if present, or the forced line break if there is no tab (if you use a right-indent tab instead of a regualr right aligned tab [tricky to do a leader, but that's another discussion] substitute ^y for the ^t), then add a nested Line Style for one line. That line style should use a second character style that is based on the first character style you created for the name text and has no other attributes if you want the line to be the same from end to end. Sounds more complex than it is, and will work for listings with variable lenghths. The trick is to repalce your paragraph returns with forced line breaks, and will require a little thinking.
If using separate paragraph styles for each line, you'd use the same technique of a nested style up to a tab for the first line, but there is no need to get fancier since it will apply to the whole line if there is no tab. The paragraph style, in this case, would carry all of the bold and size formatting (and no need for any indents), and the character style would be nothing more than a name that will allow you to use it in the variable.