InDesign Scripting or GREP Find/Change?

Can anyone help me with a script or GREP idea for finding, cutting and pasting the phone numbers at the end of these paragraphs? The first one is what I have and the second is where I would like to get. There are hundreds of these in 4 restaurant directories that I am designing.
Woodlands (ve) Indian. Weekend buffet. 4078 Jermantown Road. (703) 385-1996. M–F 11:30am–10pm, Sa 11:30am–10pm, Su 11:30 am–9:30pm.
Woodlands (ve) Indian. Weekend buffet. 4078 Jermantown Road. M–F 11:30am–10pm, Sa 11:30am–10pm, Su 11:30 am–9:30pm. (703) 385-1996.

You don't need to ask the same question twice. Lets keep all the discussion inthe original topic please,
http://forums.adobe.com/message/3856456#3856456
If you are not able to make the anser I provide there work, please provide some details about what is not working, and some before and after screen shots.

Similar Messages

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.

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 Steve

seb400 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

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?
Steve

Hi 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

GREP find/change problem

Hi, am trying to execute InDesign's default find/change AppleScript script to fix many formatting issues in a large document. One of them is occurences of a two-digit dollar figure followed by a comma (eg. "$10,") that needs to be changed to have no comma.
Using GREP I can pick it up by finding "\$\d\d," but when I replace it with "\$\d\d" I get the actual string "\$\d\d". IE. "$10," becomes "\$\d\d" rather than "$10". Am I misundersting how the 'change' part of GREP works? Can any one advise?
FYI the line in the find/change support .txt doc is:
grep
{find what:"\\$\\d\\d,"}
{change to:"\\$\\d\\d"}
{include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}
Remove commas after prices.
...which includes extra backslashes to escape the backslashes that are part of the GREP expression.
Any help much appreciated!
Thanks.

No, unfortunately lookbehinds don't work with variable-length strings. That's the case with all GREP implemantations, not just InDesign's. You can sort of get around it by using or-constructs, but they soon become unmanageable. Here's an example (split and indented just for clarity, you would need to write all this on one line):
     (?<=\$\d)
     |
     (?<=\$\d\d)
     |
     (?<=\$\d\d\d)
This one says "if a comma is preceded by $ and a digit OR by $ and two digits OR by $ and three digits, then . . ." As you understand, if you need to allow up to six or seven digits, possibly thousand separators too, then lookbehinds become unpracticable.
>I'm really struggling to get to grips with how GREP statements work.
Try this: http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596156008/
Peter

Question for scripting gurus: GREP search, change case make Smallcaps

I have no knowledge of scripting at all, but this question keeps coming up during training sessions: is it possible to (java)script this:
- Do a GREP search \u\u+
- Change case to lowercase
- Apply SmallCaps (or: apply character style)
this would allow to search for acronyms and change them to smallcaps (or, even better: apply a character style with small caps and tracking)
I know it is easy for OpenType smallcaps (do a GREP search, change to OT smallcaps) but this doesn't really change case. And some fonts used aren't OT.
Anyone?
Would be VERY apreciated!!

But Harbs is a seasoned scripter who knows he'll get flamed if one of his scripts "just does not work" ;)
Well, now that you mention it, the script is not really foolproof. It's a quick and dirty script which I threw together very quickly. It's missing any error checking, some of the variables global, and it's not in a private namespace. These are all things which could cause it to "just not work" ;-)
Here's a more foolproof construct... (and it'll work on the current story if selected, or the whole document if there's no story selected) It will create a new character style if one does not exist and work on character styles within style groups as well. I wrapped the whole script in an anonymous function to give it a unique namespace as well.
(function()
if(app.documents.length==0){return}
var doc=app.documents[0];
// Change the following to your style name!
var character_style_name = 'Small Caps';
try{var range = app.selection[0].parentStory}
catch (err){var range = doc}
//comment out next line if you do not want styles.
var charStyle = GetCharacterStyle(character_style_name,doc);
app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat="\\u\\u+";
var finds=range.findGrep();
for (var i=0;i<finds.length;i++){
finds[i].changecase(ChangecaseMode.lowercase);
//comment out next line if you do not want styles.
finds[i].applyCharacterStyle (charStyle)
//uncomment next line if you do not want styles.
//finds[i].capitalization=Capitalization.smallCaps;
function GetCharacterStyle(styleName,doc){
var charStyles=doc.allCharacterStyles;
for(var i=0;i<charStyles.length;i++){
if(charStyles[i].name==styleName){
return charStyles[i];
return doc.characterStyles.add({name:styleName,capitalization:Capitalization.smallCaps});

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

GREP query for find/change operation

Hi everyone,
In the following line, there's a comma after the first name. This type of formatting is repeated hundreds of times on a number of pages so I need to use a GREP find/change query to remove the comma after the first name and replace it with a space.
Firstname,Lastname,State
I wondered if something could tell me what the GREP code would be?
Appreciate any assistance.

function(){return A.apply(null,[this].concat($A(arguments)))}
.. it's also doing it for the second comma
That's impossible. You must have entered something else than Scott's code.

[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

Find/Change resources

Where are the files stored which you saved in the Find/Change window.
I can't find them in the Preset folder.

And for Mac:
HardDisk/Users/Username/Library/Adobe InDesign/Version x/nl_NL/Find-Change Queries/Text
tnx Salah

Find Grep in changed from 5.00 to 5.03? (AS)

Hello,
Can someone please tell me what I'm doing wrong. This script worked in CS3 v5.00 but now I have tried it in 5.03 and as you can see below it doesn't find anything. I'm using grep to search inside a table for the word "voy" which as you can see from the last line, IS in the table.
tell application "Adobe InDesign CS3"
set find grep preferences to nothing
set change grep preferences to nothing
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
set find what of find grep preferences to "(?i)voy"
find grep row 2 of table id 30958 of text frame id 30954 of page id 30551 of master spread id 30508 of document "Untitled-7"
get contents of row 2 of table id 30958 of text frame id 30954 of page id 30551 of master spread id 30508 of document "Untitled-7"
{"vessel", "voy", "eta", "etd", "eta"}
end tell

What happens if you change it to to "find grep cells of row..."?<br /><br />-- <br />Shane Stanley <[email protected]>

Script for running multiple find/change queries

Working on a large ID book document (*.indb), I have saved several dozens of Find/Change Queries (named "col01", "col02" etc.) that I run on "All documents". For a particular reason I have to run these queries several times a day.
So I was wondering whether there is, or whether anybody out there would write, a script that runs these queries one after the other. Given the size of the book, it might be necessary to provide for the script to pause after each query is run (before it goes on with the next), but I am just guessing.
Any help is much appreciated!

There are a couple of others:
http://forums.adobe.com/message/5173943#5173943
this is more at code level rather than a GUI, but the actual queries are made using the Find/Change dialog box.
Also
http://www.kahrel.plus.com/indesign/grep_query_manager.html
This is good too, but only does GREP searches (no text, glyph or object find/replaces) that were written by the user - does not use the ones installed with InDesign. Does allow changes by selection, story, document or folder.
Did try the Doquerylist suggested by Kasyan. This allows GREP/text changes by the user/installed with InDesign, but only applies to a selection or text-thread.
Always good to have more than one way of accomplishing a task though!

With GREP, is there a way to assign a character find/change to a p style?

I'm looking for more ways to automate text styling in the magazine I produce. In InDesign, I can assign find/replace command strings in the Find/Change GREP window, but I've found no online source that tells me how to find/replace characters using GREP WITHIN a p style. It seems as if the latter GREP capability is limited to changing character styles and can't search and replace actual characters.
Example: I have a list of recipe ingredients. I want to replace the quantity (one to three digits) at the beginning of each ingredient with a tab-digit(s)-tab combination. In Find/Change, I can enter "\d+\s" and replace with "\t$0\t" but I don't see a way to assign that capability to a p style. I want this find/change to occur automatically any time copy is added to text tagged with the Recipe Ingredients paragraph style, so I don't have to keep running a Find/Change each time we edit the page. One power user has told me it's not possible. Any insight or alternative solution would be much appreciated.

Your power source has it right, GREP Styles can only apply character styles to the text it finds.
And there is no easy way to have text replaced automatically -- you would still need to run a script, or press a hotkey or something.

Find/Change GREP - FindChangeByList - help!

Hi,
Can anyone help with my GREP problem? I have a long unformatted list of products, I need a couple of GREP find and change queries to help format the list. The formatting will be based on paragraph styles for product header, description and product code. I have GREP working correctly to find the product code lines and apply the 'product code' paragraph style, but I'm struggling to target the product header line. The product header is on the next line after the product code, or it could be found on the line above the product description. I need GREP to find the product header to apply the product header paragraph style. I'm looking at using FindChangeByList; so far I have the folowing:
grep
{findWhat:"(Product Code|Product code)$"}
{appliedParagraphStyle:"Product Code-green"}
The above line finds all the Product Codes and applies the paragraph style. It works perfectly well from Indesigns Find/Change panel and FindChangeByList.
But the next bit doesn't work:
grep
{findWhat:"^(?<=\\r)", appliedParagraphStyle:"Product Code-green"}
{changeTo:"", appliedParagraphStyle:"Product Header-green"}
I've tried to target the 'Start of a paragraph (^)' (this will be the product header) that has - 'Paragraph Break (\r)' with the 'Product Code-green' applied (this is the product code), in front of it. - (Am I right in thinking that in the FindChangeByList script I need 2 slashed on \\r - I have tried with 1 and 2 - no joy.)
If I do this in Indesigns Find/Change panel it does kind of work. If I click find, it will find the correct point, and click change, it will apply the correct style to the product header - BUT if I click CHANGE ALL - it doesn't work. It reports '0' instances found, yet if i click Find again it will find the next instance. So it's kind of working on an individual click and find basis, but not on global change all - STRANGE? And it doesn't work at all when run from FindChangeByList.
Anybody got any thoughts on why this is happening? or a better piece of GREP to try? Would really like it to be running from FindChangeByList. Hope the above makes sense.
Thanks

Hi,
You can go straight or try to modify 'MultiFind' script.
I suggest to use a text conditions and go straight with this code:
var
          mDoc = app.activeDocument,
          mCond = mDoc.conditions.item("mFound"),
          mPath = "~/Documents/ID_words_to_find.txt",
          mDelimiter = ",",
          mSource = File(mPath),
          mOpen = mSource.open("r",undefined,undefined),
          len, len1, mWordsArr, mFound;
if (!mCond.isValid)
          mCond = mDoc.conditions.add({
                    name: "mFound",
                    indicatorColor: UIColors.LIGHT_BLUE,
                    indicatorMethod: ConditionIndicatorMethod.USE_HIGHLIGHT,
                    underlineIndicatorAppearance: ConditionUnderlineIndicatorAppearance.SOLID
if ( !mOpen) {alert ("Can't open a source file"; exit()};
mWordsArr = mSource.read().split(mDelimiter);
len = mWordsArr.length;
app.findTextPreferences = null;
while (len-->0) {
          app.findTextPreferences.findWhat = mWordsArr[len];
          mFound = mDoc.findText();
          len1 = mFound.length;
          while (len1-->0)
                    mFound[len1].appliedConditions = [mCond];
app.findTextPreferences = null;
How it works (should)?
Assumed:
- a list of words to find is in a .txt file as comma-delimited (you could set other delimiter)
- this file is named 'ID_words_to_find' and saved in user Documents folder (you can change mPath)
Script define a condition 'mFound' and apply it to every word from your list found in a document. They are highlighted. You can modify them.
Notice: to remove a condition (highlight) modify a word including a space before it.
Enjoy:)
Jarek

InDesign Scripting or GREP Find/Change?

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