Grep style: identify the letter l first in a paragraph

Grep style: I want to add a character style to the letter l, but only if it is the first character in a paragraph and the next character is a single space. Basically, I would like to change the font to zapf dingbats, but only for the letter l when it is the first character in a paragraph. This will generate a bullet character as first letter. has anyone any idea how this grep search should be? The query should look for the letter l and a single space first in a paragraph!

The GREP for this would be:
1. Start of paragraph: ^
2. Followed by a single letter "l": l
3. A positive lookahead for a single space: (?= )
^l(?= )
Uwe

Similar Messages

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.

How do I apply a grep style to the plus (+) sign?

I was able to apply a grep style to the minus and equal sign, but not the plus sign "+". It appears the plus sign means 'apply to all' in the grep style box. Can some assist me with this? Thanks in advance.

Thank you. It worked perfectly.

How to identify the bill is First bill, Final bill or Normal bill?

Hi
How to identify the bill is First bill, Final bill or Normal bill.
If the bill is first bill how we can identify this is by acquisition or change of tenancy.
If the bill is final bill how we can identify this is by change of tenancy or loss.
Please provide the tablets to get the above information.
Thanks & Regards,
Sree
Edited by: Sree on Oct 13, 2009 11:23 AM

Sree,
Please check the field ERCH-ABRVORG (billing transaction). It shows you what kind of bill has been created (e.g., 03 = Final Billing for Move-Out). If the begin of billing period matches to the move-in date it is the first bill created for that particular contract.
I hope this helps.
Kind regards,
Fritz

Nested Line Style affecting my GREP style

Hello all.
I'm formatting a large book at the moment and am trying out a "runt fixer" to prevent bad sentence breaks in columns. So far I have created a character style that only applies the "no-break" attribute, and have two GREP styles - one looking for a space and 8 characters or less before a full-stop, exclamation mark or question mark; and another looking for the 8 characters or less then a space after a full-stop, exclamation point or question mark. The codes are:
\s.{1,8}[.!?]
and
(?<=[.?!]\s).{1,8}\s
It works... nearly. It has issues when fullstops are used in numbers such as displaying currency, dates... but largely works for the text.
The problem occurs when I go to the Drop Caps and Nested Styles feature, and use the "New Line Style" - in this instance it was used at the beginning of chapters to make the first line smallcaps. Instead, something strange happened to the second GREP style - it no longer worked.
In case I'm not explaining myself properly, i've uploaded a sample of what is going on here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/55743036/runt-issue.idml
The first page is OK, but the second page displays the fault. I've colorised the GREPs so that it is clear what is not breaking at the end of a sentence and what is not breaking at the start of a sentence.
Has anyone experienced this before or can tell me what is going on? it is my error or is it a bug?
Colin

@Colin – I thought, I could make it work, if I introduce another GREP Style BEFORE the one that is not working: A GREP Style, that is doing nothing (applying the character style "[None]" to a character like "§" that is simply not in the text. Did not work.
Another attempt with InDesign CS5.5 OSX 10.6.8: I made a new paragraph style BASED ON the one that is not working. Changed nothing in that new one, just let it be based on the not working one.
Now: THAT IS FINALLY WORKING! But in a different way I expected…
"Will work" is based on "not working".
Here all GREP Styles used in "Will work":
Uwe

A GREP style not holding in CS4

Hi,
OK...I have been playing with a bunch of these GREP searches in CS4 where I can put them in as a stylesheet.
I have a character style that is called superscript, that automatically makes a ® superscript when it is typed, and that is working fine.
Then I added my lookahead for any TM or ® to add a 100 tracking in between the letter and the tm or ®. It does it if I have the type in the box and apply my style to the whole box. But, if I go in and make changes to the text, the ®-superscript automatically happens when I type a new one, but the tracking doesn't automatically happen. What's worse is, if I select the text and try to apply the style manually, it still doesn't not apply the 100 tracking. I have to make it a basic or none style and then re-apply the good one.
If it is in the GREP style of the paragraph style, shouldn't it do it dynamically?
Here is my image.
thanks!!
babs

The only object I know of you can create an InDesign and specify whether it prints or not in the PDF is a button. That would definitely NOT work with character styles.

[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?
Claudius

That'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.

GREP styles vs style sheets

I've got a lull at work and decided to work on my list and start to learn GREP so that I can use GREP styles.
The first one is a simple one: [[A-Z][A-Z]\S+?] This finds anything inside the brackets that starts with two capital letters. I know it works because I can find "[MT2]" in Find/Change.
OK, so I try it in some ID cs5 text with my first GREP style. It's failing the vast majority of the time. So I try lots of different things to see if I can find a pattern of what works and what doesn't. I've tried just the local formatting of a lone 'graf. I've tried making character and 'graf style sheets that incorporate a GREP style with the new character style, say "change type color to green".
I've looked through the forums and don't see others with my problem so it must be something about me or my document. I've used other documents to eliminate that variable. I've gone through the tutorials and David Blatner's stuff and don't see anything I'm doing differently.
When I format some text with a character and 'graf style sheet, it fails. BUT when I change the character style sheet of the source text to "[None]" it works. I've tried starting with text that is '[None]' and a 'graf style sheet of Normal, it works.
But starting with text styled with '[None]' character and a formal 'graf style sheet with a GREP Style, it fails. But when I change the 'graf style sheet to ]'Basic Paragraph]' it works.
I'm trying to find a pattern here, so to speak, and the only thing that has a chance to succeed is setting the character style sheet to 'None.' I just don't see than anyone who uses GREP styles has any problems like I do.
What do you reckon I'm overlooking? I've spent today trying to find what works and doesn't. As it is, I can't recommend this to my co-workers.

Rule of thumb for applying styles is basic formats for the entire paragraph should be defined in the paragraph style. If some selected bit of text needs to be formatted differnently, then you apply a character style (or, if you must, a local formatting override). With Nested Styles and GREP styles, ID has very powerful tools for applying character styles to selected text WITHIN the confines of the paragraph style definition. Most programs don't have that capability.
Should you apply the character syle as a nested or GREP style, or perhaps through Find/Change, or just by manually selecting text and applying the style? The answer to that will depend on a few variables. Should the particular string ALWAYS have a particular set of attributes, no matter what? Find/Change or local selection is the way to go. Character styles applied that way will survive even if the underlying paragraph style is changed to match the character style, then changed again. If the style should be applied to a string in a particular position in a paragraph, even if that position might move around a bit, a nested style is probably the way to go. If you want to make changes to text that matches a particular pattern, wherever it falls, when the surrounding text is a particular style, a GREP style is the answer.
GREP styles are very powerful, but they also use far more in terms of resources than applying a character style using other methods. I've seen reoprts of ID getting bogged down by too many GREP styles.

CS5 - Grep style problems

Where I work the treatment of the type is to reduce the size of all-caps, a string of numbers, or a combination of the two. For years they've been doing it by setting up a Character Style for each Paragraph Style (e.g., "Body smaller" for "Body), and then also alternate Character Styles if the text already has a Character Style applied to it ("Body Red Italic smaller" for "Body Red Italic"). You can imagine this quickly becomes a lot of styles.
So I thought with CS5 Grep styles I could set this up in the Paragraph Styles. I want the Grep style to apply a Character Style that is nothing but a Horizontal and Vertical scale of 95%.
The types of things I'm wanting Grep to find are below. But I'm only wanting to apply the style to the letters and numbers and not the punctuation.
AAA
B23
33,333
4,444,444
U.S.A.
(ABC-1)
I went at writing this a piece at time, so it is not very elegant. Here's what I have:
\d{2,}|\u{2,}|\u+\d+|\d+\u+|\d+[[:punct:]]\d+|\u+[[:punct:]]\u+|\u+[[:punct:]]\d+|\d+[[:pu nct:]]\u+
This does a pretty good job, with a couple of problems.
1) It is "catching" (applying the character style) to the first punctuation if there is a single character before it (e.g. the first piece of punctuation in 4,444,444 and U.S.A.)
2) It is not always "catching" instances where there are more than three sets of numbers/caps in an item (e.g. U.S.A., it doesn't style the "A"). I know Grep is probably just doing what I'm telling it to do, but I can't see how to fix it.
I would appreciate any help anyone could give me.
Thanks.
Tom

You can't do all this in one GREP style. The one you came up with is already difficult to read, so you can imagine what happens to its readability by the time you get it to work. Apart from that I don't think it's possible to do what you want in one expression.
So you really need to split up your task into several chunks, all of which you can then add to the same paragraph style. Your expressions may be more efficient, but they're much eaier to understand and maintain. Here goes.
The easy ones are AAA, B23, and (ABC-1), all of which are captured by this expression:
$?\u[-\u\d]+$?
U.S.A. is more tricky, and it needs to be split in two itself. The first part captures series capital+period, but not the last one:
\u(?=\.\u)
Capturing the last capital+period is interesting in that it requires a negative lookahead embedded in a positive lookahead, which I wouldn't have thought was possible, but it works:
(?<=\.)\u(?=\.(?!\u))
For the numbers you's do something similar.
Peter

Apply grep style only once

I can't get my brain around what is probably a very simple problem: I want a paragraph style that applies boldfacing to any character up to an including the first colon in a paragraph. If I used a nested style "through 1 :" the whole graf is bold if there is no colon. So that's out.
A grep style ".+: " seems to work in most cases, but if there's a second colon, the boldfacing is extended to that point. What I think I want is a grep style that works "zero or 1 times" but I cannot figure out how to use the ? to make that happen.

@Jongware – I think Robert wants to limit the GREP style to the first line of a paragraph.
But unfortunately GREP in InDesign does not know about line endings.
In scripting we could do something like what he wants, but comes with some obstacles, because the GREP will apply a character style, that will probably change the line ending. A very dynamic situation…
Example 1
Basic situation:
This is my text here comes the colon: and
here another one: that Robert don't like
to take into account using the GREP style.
Formatted after the GREP style is applied:
This is my text here comes the colon: and
here another one: that Robert don't like
to take into account using the GREP style.
As I understand it, in case that the first colon will leave line one, only the first line should be formatted like this:
(Case 1)
This is my text here comes the first
colon: and here another one: that
Robert don't like to take into account
using the GREP style.
Or should it be, that the style should only be applied, if it's in the first line?
(Case 2):
This is my text here comes the first
colon: and here another one: that
Robert don't like to take into account
using the GREP style.
But what, if the colon in the basic case is at the end of line 1 and will be shifted to line 2 after formatting?
What should happen then?
That is simply not possible to format automatically (dynamically) using GREP styles in InDesign.
Uwe

How can I apply a GREP style to a text variable?

Hello everybody,
I have a question concerning GREP styles inside Paragraph styles.
1. I've created a text variable to generate a recurring title on the upper side of the page based on the main title paragraph style;
2. The recurring title is in Adobe Garamond Small Caps, all letters in lower case, and it is formatted with a paragraph style sheet in the master page;
3. I want to create a GREP style for the recurring title, according to which every time that in the recurring title appear an apostrophe or the double quotes, they are automatically lowered 2pt on the baseline
(I already created the character style sheet that lowers letters of 2pt).
What I need is the correct GREP formula to automatically apply the character style sheet to apostrophes and double quotes, in the line of text generated by the text variable...
Thanks for your help
p.

Hi,
As I said, using Power Headers is the best way to do it.
As Power Headers treats the header as "live text", you can use a simple grep style inserted in the header para style:
… to obtain:
For the sample, I use a char style named "-2pts" with Shift -5 pts and Green color to show you the place of ' and ".
Don't forget that, even Power Headers treats the header as "live text", you only have to update Power Headers to make an update of the headers!
Even I use in another cases Tomaxxi's [JS] and it's a good way to treat the question, Jean-Claude Tremblay's solution is less interesting because the variable used is converted in text. If the variable text content changes, it's more complicated to manage the update!

[CS4/5] [JS] Which paragraph style does the panel context menu action work on?

Hi all,
I am trying to write something similar as http://forums.adobe.com/message/2866720#2866720 for the paragraph style context menu. I also would like to find out which paragraph style has been selected when the context menu opens. In the thread there is a "dirty" solution for this, the Edit and Apply options of the context menu also mention the name of the paragraph style. This works as long as the paragraph style is unique.
In my situation the paragraph style names are not always unique, the same name is used in different paragraph style groups. I thought of an even "dirtier" solution that might work for this. The basic idea behind this is to create a new text, asfaik Indesign will automatically apply the active paragraph style to this text and it is easy to grab this style. The code for this is below:
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
var myTextFrame = myDoc.textFrames.add();
myTextFrame.contents = "grab the paraStyle";
var myParaStyle = myTextFrame.paragraphs[0].appliedParagraphStyle;
myTextFrame.remove();
In my situation this approach seems to work fine but I am wondering if there is something against creating a new textframe and removing it later? And will the new text always get the current selected paragraph style?
Best Regards,
Bill

I finetuned the snippet above a bit further. In some cases the context menu will be activated (right mouseclick) from a style that is not currently selected. In thoses cases the example above doesn't give the correct information. In order to avoid this I am now applying the paragraph style of the current context menu to an intermediate textframe. The snippet below is placed inside the EventHandler of my custom context menu item.
var myDoc = app.activeDocument;
//store current selection
var mySelection = myDoc.selection;
//create intermediate textframe
var myTextFrame = myDoc.textFrames.add();
myTextFrame.contents = "grab the paraStyle";
myTextFrame.select();
//apply the para style of the context menu to the intermediate text
var contextMenu = app.menus.item("Text Style List Context Menu"); //or "$ID/RtMenuStyleListItem"
var applyMenuItem = contextMenu.menuItems.itemByID(8488).associatedMenuAction; //Apply "para style for context menu"
applyMenuItem.invoke();
//grab the para style of the context menu
var myParaStyle = myTextFrame.paragraphs[0].appliedParagraphStyle;
//restore original selection and remove intermediate textframe
myDoc.selection = mySelection;
myTextFrame.remove();
Again this snippet seems to work fine. I realize this approach will only work for para styles in a Document object and not for default para styles defined in the Application (suggestions to solve this?). A further refinement could be to first check if a para style name is unique, if that is the case the solution of Jongware (see http://forums.adobe.com/message/2861568#2861568) can be used and an intermediate textframe is not required.
I know this is a dirty solution but are there any issues with this approach?

Use Grep Styles to add multiplication symbol.

Hey Everyone,
Has anyone used grep styles to change 5x6 to 5×6? I tried to do it, but the dialog box to create a grep style is the character style dialog box. But, I am unable to enter a glyph. Now, I can use the find and search for \d+x\d+, but it will find 5x6 and change it all to × instead of changing the "x" only. I would hate to have to search for "x" in a document. Just trying to find a way to change "number 'x' number" to "number '×' number."
Thanks,

Or you can use (?<=\d)x(?=\d) [that's a look-behind/lookahead withthe x in the middle] and apply a character style to scale and shift the x. GREP styles cannot change the glyph used, only the formatting.

IDCS5/MAC - GREP Style to uppercase a letter after a dash between words

G'day there.
I'm trying to create a GREP style to uppercase a letter after a dash between words, more specifically where one word starts with a capital and the one after a dash does not e.g. Lorem-ipsum = Lorem-Ipsum
The full story is that there is a standing indesign file used over and over again which data-merges surnames which are in a massive database. The data arrives in uppercase and our mail barcoding software allows us to Title Case certain fields, but the Title Case behaviour has the following results:
* McLeod = Mcleod
* D'Agostino = D'agostino
* Smith-Bunting = Smith-bunting
i've been able to solve the McLeod = Mcleod problem with the following GREP style:
(?<=Mc)\l
and then apply a character style which is nothing more than All Caps.
similarly, i've been able to solve the D'Agostino = D'agostino problem:
(?<=\u')\l
and once again apply the All Caps style to the affected letter. This also solves the O'leary problem to O'Leary.
However, when I try these GREPs to grab the Smith-bunting style issues:
(?<=\u\l+?-)\l or (?<=\u\l{2,}-)\l
the search won't work, nor will it work with regular Find/Change GREP replace... yet the expression \u\l+?-\l will find the block that i'm after.
I could use the search
(?<=\l-)\l
and this will find Smith-bunting = Smith-Bunting... but will also find co-operate = co-Operate (will find two words joined with a dash but starts with a lower case letter).
This is fine if the para style is applied to the line in the address block containing the client's name, but if the name is referred to in a block of text, then that block of text has to have the para style with the GREP style applied, and any dashes between words in that para behave the same way as the name.
yes, it is possible to go into excel and use the =PROPER(affected cell) and fix the Smith-Bunting fields, but i'm trying to create a solution which will work solely in InDesign so that other operators in the office (who aren't familiar with excel) can simply open the standing file and dump in the txt database generated by the mail barcoding software.
there are other names that the mail barcoding's title-case fouls up i.e.
* MacLeod = Macleod
* van der Graaf = Van Der Graaf
* van Diemen = Van Diemen
but a GREP to make Macleod become MacLeod may foul up Mack, Mackie or Macy to become MacK, MacKie or MacY.
I also know that a GREP for the van der or van won't work as the style will only force letters to become All Caps, not uppercase to lower...
Ultimately...
does anyone know a way to GREP style (not a find/change GREP) a fix for Xxxxx-xxxxx = Xxxxx-Xxxxx?
Colly
Colecandoo.

I agree with Haakenlid on his Dirty-Workaround view -- I feel data should be entered the way it oguht to, not altered by some magic GREP styling -- but then again I can also sympathize with your POV re: a fire-and-forget solution even your dumbest operator can't miss.
Oh the rigors of life.
If you are totally, absolutely certain you want to do this by GREP, use this:
(a) Set a To Capitals character style to the string
\b\u\l+\-\l
-- this will magically transform "Hon. Lt. Sir John Forsythe Blunt-object" into "BLUNT-Object".
(b) Then override ( ! ) the first half again with another character style that removes the To Capitals attribute ( ! ):
\b\u\l+-(?=\l)
Notice how this expression is exactly the same as the above one, except for the very last code -- the next lowercase must also be caught, but now using a lookahead so its formatting won't be affected.
This removes the All Caps override from the first halve, changing it from "BLUNT-Object" back to "Blunt-Object".
Lots of side effects, I'm sure. Perhaps it is safer to teach your operators to run a single script.

Query to identify the Latest Pur Price of a item's First PO doc Num & Date

Hi Experts,
Version: 2007B
I want a query to do FMS in my purchase order UDF.
The information i need in UDF through FMS is,
I want the document number and Posting date of the first document of the Last purchase Price. Let me make it more clear with the example.
I am creating a Purchase order of PO01 for a item XXXX1 on 12/3/11, and enter the price of INR 400.
and again creating the Purchase order of PO25 for the same item as on 25/04/11, here since the last purchase is the price list am selected in the document level , it will show me as 400. its right. now here i want the information in my UDF is " Ref:PO01 as on 12/03/11"
This information am using it to identify the LATEST PURCHASE PRICE'S FIRST DOCUMENT DATE AND ITS DOC NUMBER to give a proof to the supplier.
Hope this information would explain my requirement.
Regards,
Dwarak
Edited by: Dwarakanath.P on Apr 19, 2011 3:11 PM

Dear GordonDu,
While executing this query, am getting these errors.
1). [Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]Unclosed quotation mark after the character string ' as of +T0.DocDate From OPOR T0 INNER JOIN POR1 T1 ON T1.DocEntry=T0.DocEntry WHERE T1.ItemCode = $[$38.1.0] ORDER BY T0.DocDate DESC FOR BROWSE '. 2). [
2). [Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]Incorrect syntax near '$38.1.0'. 2). [Microsoft][SQL Native Client][SQL Server]Statement 'Service Contracts' (OCTR) (s) could not be prepared.
Please Let me make sure of my requirement once again in short.
1) I have created a UDF in a Purchase Oder at title level.
2) next, i am creating a PO for 3 items.
3)now, i want to display the 3 items doc no and Posting date of the first Puchase order of the latest price(Last price).
thanks for your time, if you dont mind , and if you need i can also come in skype voice chat to clarrify my requirement friend.
thanks & regards,
Dwarak

Grep style: identify the letter l first in a paragraph

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