[Perm] Find something, replace with nothing?

Question

I need to remove tags from a manuscript. In PageMaker I was able to search for:
<A>
and replace with:
[nothing]
This automated the process of deleting the extraneous text. However in InDesign, leaving the "Replace" field blank does not delete text. So there is seemingly no way to automated this deletion (in one step at least).
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
--Stephen

Answer 1

Here you go. This script processes the selected story (either put your text cursor in the story or select one of its frames) and interprets PageMaker-like paragraph style tags.
If you have no tags, the paragraphs will all be left with "No Paragraph Style" so don't run it against a previously processed story.
If you don't tag a paragraph in the middle of the story, it will assume the style of the previous paragraph.
The script creates styles on the fly if they don't already exist.
If a paragraph starts with a "<" but has no ">" it's treated like a paragraph with no tag. Same for one that is tagged "<>".
I've not exactly tested it thoroughly, but it looks as though it works.
Warning: this version has a bug corrected two messages later.
tell application "InDesign 2.0.1"
set theStory to parent of selection
if class of theStory is story then
  set theLim to count of paragraphs of theStory
  set theStyles to name of every paragraph style of document 1
  set curStyle to "[No paragraph style]"
  repeat with n from 1 to theLim
   set theChar to character 1 of paragraph n of theStory
   copy curStyle to theStyleName
   if theChar = "<" then
    set theText to contents of paragraph n of theStory
    set theOffset to (offset of ">" in theText)
    if theOffset > 2 then
     set theStyleName to characters 2 through (theOffset - 1) of theText as string
     if theStyleName is not in theStyles then
      tell document 1
       set newStyle to make paragraph style
      end tell
      set name of newStyle to theStyleName
      copy theStyleName to end of theStyles
     end if
     delete characters 1 through theOffset of paragraph n of theStory
    end if
   end if
   set applied paragraph style of paragraph n of theStory to paragraph style theStyleName of document 1
   copy theStyleName to curStyle
  end repeat
end if
end tell
Dave