Using Find/Change in CS2

Is it possible to search for a single number (such as 1 or 2) without the results including multiple numbers (like 12 or 123 or 1234)?

Selecting the "Words only" option will do that. It'll still find the 1 in "1-2", but not in either "12" or "123", so it's a bit better than plain search.

Similar Messages

How to use Find Change to add FC in front of all item numbers?

Hello,
I am using Indesign CS5 on iMac, running OS 10.8.3.
I designed a product catalog that has 148 pages. Now I need to save the same design and make a new catalog for our wholesalers. On the wholesalers catalog I need to change the item numbers and add FC in front of each item number. How can I use find change to find each item and change them with FC in front of the item numbers? The following are a few examples of the item numbers:
LED-4042 I want to change it to FCLED-4042
UA-42 I want to change it to FCUA-42
SC-110 change it to FCSC-110
KN-10 change it to FCKN-10
etc....
I am hoping there is a fast way to find and change these. I was looking in to GREP, but I could not figure how to do this.
Thanks,
Omar

One way would be to just run it and then *remove* any double FC's -- but GREP can do even more! One of its many functions is to scan ahead for the presence or absence of certain text, and only act when it is (or it is not) there. This is called "lookbehind" (before the text you want to match) and "lookahead" (after the text you want to match).
In this case, you want to find a phrase starting with capitals, but NOT the exact string "FC". That's a job for Negative Lookahead -- Only Match If Not.
Try this: search for
\b(?!FC)\u+-\d+\b
... the Replace With stays the same.

Can you use Find/Change to search for many different words at once?

I have an 80 page catalogue in Indesign (CS5) - it has several thousands of catalogue numbers listed as text within it. I've just been given a list of 1000 catalogue numbers to search for and if they appear, remove them - is there any way to search for them all in one go, rather than one by one?
I've started using Find/Change to search for the catalogue numbers but seem to only be able to search one catalogue number at a time that way.
Any ideas welcome!
Thanks

GREP can search for more than one phrase "at once" (i.e., in one operation), like this:
word1|word2|word3
-- the pipe | delimits the separate words. Then again, GREP Is Not Magic™. This --
... a list of 1000 catalogue numbers to search for ...
is a bit too much to copy-and-paste into the single Find What line. There is a limit of ten or twelve (or something) OR phrases you can use in GREP.
On the other hand: GREP is great at finding numbers. If all of your catalogue numbers obey some basic rule, for instance "all of them consist of 6 digits and there are no other numbers with exactly 6 digits", well, that we can probably work with.

Keep layout position when using Find/Change?

When using Find/Change in InDesign CS4, each occurrence of the "Found" material is centered in the window, so the page moves around with each find. Is there a way to keep the page in a fixed position when searching through a document?

Actually, I can think of a shortcut for the hard part: The user uses the
regular find/change UI to make all their settings. Then, they run the
script, which will simply use the settings in the UI. Nice, huh! So you
could get a listBox of all the finds -- select the entry and you get
taken to the desired location. Click the "change" button and the change
is made. Here's a proof of concept:
#targetengine engine20
var myFinds = app.findText();
var w = new Window("palette");
var myList = w.add("listbox", undefined, myFinds);
var changeButton = w.add("button", undefined, "Change");
myList.onChange = gotoFound;
changeButton.onClick = makeTheChange;
w.show();
function gotoFound(){
app.select(myFinds[myList.selection.index].parentTextFrames[0].parent.parent);
app.select(myFinds[myList.selection.index]);
function makeTheChange(){
myFinds[myList.selection.index].changeText();
Obviously very rudimentary: but this does work in CS4. If the list is
too long, though, the change button will disappear off the bottom of the
screen. Also, really once the change is made, the item should be removed
from the list, but there's a bug in CS4 that makes it impossible to do
that simply, if I recall correctly (or was that only a tree list?)
Also, I have found that the only sure way of getting the entire spread
to show is as I've done it above (and it would need much more error
checking than this -- for instance, overset text).
Ariel

Subcript using find/change

Hi I am trying to change for eg: H2O to H2(subscript)O using the find/change command. It doesn't work. Can anyone help?

Ted, Peter and John,
As Ted, I make scientific books. Such expression is rather treated as an equation with MathType or MathMagic editors. So this kind of question does not arise, for me. The treatment is done, eg, with a TeX syntax as: ${H}_{2}O$.
I've created a lot of grep search/replace to do this. Eg: find H2O, CH4, SO4/2- … and replace by the good TeX syntax so that we can finally obtain MathMagic equations.
SO4/2- is interesting: SO, normal, 4 (subscript), 2- (superscript with - using a special math MMTimes font), one under the other.
Difficult too to treat with ID a formula where H2O is, eg, all in subscript!
Easier to write it with MathMagic and, fortunately, a lot of "formulas" will be treated by search/replace as:
search H2O
replace by: ${H}_{2}O$
Good night! (22h 20, in France)

Using find/change in Indesign CS4

I am needing to change date colors for a calendar. That for instance for the Month of June the 1,4,7 &10 need to be in red, 2,5,8,11 need to be blue and 3,6,9, & 12 need to be green. Does anyone know of a way to do this without having to enter each individual date? Thanks so much!

Something along these lines:
app.findGrepPreferences = null;
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "\\b(1|4|7|10)\\b";
app.changeGrepPreferences. // appliedColor or swatches or whatever = "red"
app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "\\b(2|5|8|11)\\b";
app.changeGrepPreferences. // appliedColor or swatches or whatever = "blue"
app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
app.findGrepPreferences.findWhat = "\\b(3|6|9|12)\\b";
app.changeGrepPreferences. // appliedColor or swatches or whatever = "green"
app.activeDocument.changeGrep();
Peter

Find/Change Inserting paragraph break

Hello
I am trying to insert a paragraph mark between two lines of text using find/change
The first line has a heading style and I want to insert an empty line (Paragraph) after it and before the next line (without changing any formatting)
I am able to use enter the correct parameters in find but can't figure out what parameter to use in 'Change to"
Forced line break doesn't produce what I want. Neither does standard carriage return (not sure what that is)
I have tried both Text and Grep dialogs without success. Yes I read the help files.
This will be simple for you guys but is stumping me.
Any ideas oh brilliant ones?
As usual Thanks much in advance

Err, a paragraph mark? You mean a paragraph break?
Anyhow, if you insist on Doing it Wrong, you can use ^p ("End of Paragraph") in the change field. So you might
change ^p to ^p^p to insert a blank paragraph between each paragraph. For instance. But again, it is the wrong answer.
Yes-a paragraph break.' Sorry for the imperfect terminology
The first line is a heading style which I was advised in this forum to make into a 'list style' due to TOC issues
The 'doing it wrong' paragraph is going to be used to anchor a graphic and then converted to a very small paragraph mark (nearly invisible) as advised in another article
I did use the
change ^p to ^p^p
but it creating another list style as the paragraph break. Its ok. I went ahead and did it anyway and then manually changed all of those entries into a regular paragraph 'break'
With 300 graphics I would like to automate this but.....
Thanks for your reply

FIND/CHANGE - Applying Paragraph Style

Hello,
I used FIND/CHANGE to apply my paragraph style and when I apply the paragraph style... it applies the style to the entire line.
For example,
A. #70712 resulted to A. #70712
I only wanted the "#70712" to be changed to my style. I used the GREP search and entered #.+ and then I choose the paragraph style I want and clicked change all. The problem is that it changed all the text on that line and applied the paragraph style.
Please help. Thank you very much.

graphicsoc wrote:
Hello,
I used FIND/CHANGE to apply my paragraph style and when I apply the paragraph style... it applies the style to the entire line.
For example,
A. #70712 resulted to A. #70712
I only wanted the "#70712" to be changed to my style. I used the GREP search and entered #.+ and then I choose the paragraph style I want and clicked change all. The problem is that it changed all the text on that line and applied the paragraph style.
Please help. Thank you very much.
If I understand your request correctly:
If your paragraph style uses a numbered list to create the "A." and the remainder of the paragraph consists of only "# 70712" that you type in manually (or place from an existing file), I believe that you you don't need GREP. You can format the auto-numbered list differently from the remainder of its paragraph, by specifying a character style for the number portion.
To extract only the non-numbered portion of an auto-numbered paragraph, for a TOC, in the Table of Contents dialog box, open the bottom part by clicking More Options if necessary, and in the Numbered Paragraphs pull-down menu, select Exclude Numbers.
Read more about Table of Contents in Help, and/or with a Google search for terms like "InDesign table of contents numbered list exclude numbers" without quotes.
If you need additional special formatting "tricks" in the source paragraphs, or in the TOC entry paragraphs, look into Nested Styles and GREP
Styles in Help or Google searches.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

Find/Change throughout a book

I have several documents I'd like to use find/change with. Is there a way I can create a book of all these docs and use find/change? Is there perhaps a better way to do this?
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks

Open all the documents you wish to run the find/change on and choose all
documents from the find/change dialog.
Bob

Find/Change - GREP vs. TEXT

Today, thanks to this amazing forum, I discovered that I had been using "Find/Change" under TEXT, instead of GREP.
Using "Find/Change" as GREP for finding & replacing seems to be MUCH MORE POWERFUL than "TEXT."
What are the disadvantages of using "Find/Change" GREP ? I notice it cannot do "case sensitive" — any other cons?

GREP searches can be either case insensitive on or off
case insensitive on: (?i)
Case insensitive off (?-i)
Example:
Search for either "case" or "Case" (?i)case found on 1st, 2nd and 3rd line
Search for just "Case" (?-i)Case found on 3rd line only

Adobe Indesign Find Change Item Numbers?

I am using Indesign CS5 on iMac, running OS 10.8.3.
I designed a product catalog that has 148 pages. Now I need to save the same design and make a new catalog for our wholesalers. On the wholesalers catalog I need to change the item numbers and add FC in front of each item number. How can I use find change to find each item and change them with FC in front of the item numbers? The following are a few examples of the item numbers:
LED-4042 I want to change it to FCLED-4042
UA-42 I want to change it to FCUA-42
SC-110 change it to FCSC-110
KN-10 change it to FCKN-10
etc....
I am hoping there is a fast way to find and change these. I was looking in to GREP, but I could not figure how to do this.
Thanks,
Omar

This could be a very complex GREP - or a very simple one.
4 Examples are good, but we need more concrete examples. In particular, the longest and the shortest example.
LED-4042 I want to change it to FCLED-4042
UA-42 I want to change it to FCUA-42
SC-110 change it to FCSC-110
KN-10 change it to FCKN-10
This will find your posted item numbers - but …
\<\u{2,3}-\d{2,4}
change to:
FC$0
AND: exists one or more item number/s with FC at the beginning? I hope it is not so.
<edit>
A new day, a better solution (This GREP can be used many times in succession. It may already one or more "FC-numbers" be present.):
\<(?!FC)\u{2,3}-\d{2,4}\>
Or if no similar strings are exists in your document:
\<(?!FC)\u+-\d+\>
Have fun and give a feedback.
edited by pixxxel schubser

Can't use Find My Friends on iPhone due to Apple ID not being verified. Can't do this as I can't access my .mac email any longer and I can not change the primary e-mail address for my Apple ID!

Can't use Find My Friends on iPhone due to Apple ID not being verified.
Can't do this as I can't access my .mac email any longer and I can not change the primary e-mail address for my Apple ID!
So my options are:
Create a new Apple ID, use that and lose all the apps I've purhcased with it (a fairly substantial amount)
Somehow Migrate these purchases over to a new Apple ID
Apple let me change the primary ID for the account
Anyone else ran into this before?
I've tried accessing the mail through a mail application using the correct server information, and trying both the old 6 character password and the one I had to change it too after they updated the security guidelines - neither work.
Help would be greatly appreciated as I can see more services down the line not working without the address being verified!

To change the iCloud ID you have to go to Settings>iCloud, tap Delete Account, provide the password for the old ID when prompted to turn off Find My iDevice, then sign back in with the ID you wish to use. When you do this you may find that the password for your old ID isn't accepted. If this should happen, and if your old ID is an earlier version of your current ID, you need to temporarily recreate your old ID by going to https://appleid.apple.com, click Manage my Apple ID and sign in with your current iCloud ID. Click edit next to the primary email account, change it back to your old email address and save the change. Then edit the name of the account to change it back to your old email address. You should not need to verify the old email address. You can now use your current password to turn off Find My iDevice on your device, even though it prompts you for the password for your old account ID. Then save any photo stream photos that you wish to keep to your camera roll. When finished go to Settings>iCloud, tap Delete Account and choose Delete from My iDevice when prompted (your iCloud data will still be in iCloud). Next, go back to https://appleid.apple.com and change your primary email address and iCloud ID name back to the way it was. Now you can go to Settings>iCloud and sign in with your current iCloud ID and password.

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.

Find/change using end of paragraph marker /p

Folks,
We are attempting to remove a space at the end of a paragraph in unstructured documents. If I enter ' \p' in the Find text field in the Find/Change dialog FrameMaker finds the the appropriate paragraphs. If I then enter '\p' in the Change text field in the Find/Change dialog and click Change the space is removed. However the target paragraphs style is also applied to the the following paragraph. This occurs in FrameMaker 8,9 & 10.
If the Find/Change scenario above is followed with these two paragraphs the first paragraphs style is applied to the second paragraph.
paragraph 1 with a trailing space and using Heading 1 style
paragraph 2 using Heading 2 style
Any thoughts?
regards
Jon

JonEBe wrote:
Arnis,
Thanks!
Yes why bother indeed! I am at the end of a rather lengthy process to convert the creation and output of Framemaker documents into a database with a web front end. As part of this the existing documents are imported to save lengthy keying/rekeying. The output from the system is then compared against the originals. As a matter of course I stripped of leading or trailing spaces (it is amazing how many there are in a manually created/updated document) so we therefore have noisy comparison documents as a result.
BTW the trailing spaces are apparently a legacy of the conversion from WordPerfect.
My choices are to re-import without stripping the trailing space and remove them at a later date or create a script using the FDK, which I am very familiar with, and is the likely outcome!
Jon
Just a wild thought - a real GREP processor, not the mild imitation in FrameMaker, can find a construction like a space followed by a paragraph marker and delete the space without affecting the marker. The technique is a form of the "lookbehind" or "lookahead" feature. I'm zero-skilled at actually doing this beyond just mentioning it, but the technique might work in a MIF, or text conversion, of the file. Search Google for terms like "GREP lookbehind lookahead," without quotes.
Another possibility is that once the FrameMaker file is converted to the database, it would be possible to use a database command to remove the space.
HTH
Regards,
Peter
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

How to use character styles in the Find/Change JavaScripts?

First, good luck to Ole. He's been so helpful (and such a good writer, too). All the best!
My Find/Change JavaScripts are running into trouble at line 159 of the ExtendScript Toolkit. The script is searching for a particular font, to which it should then apply a character style. I'm using the format I see in Adobe's "FindChangeList" sample text, but the script is still hitting a wall. What am I doing wrong? I'd like to have a working method for searching, not only for fonts, but also for finding a particular character or paragraph style and then applying a new style.
Simple stuff, but I'm roadblocked.
Here is the script so far:
//This script applies the DFKai character style to the Arial Unicode font.
text {findWhat:"", appliedFont:"Arial Unicode MS", fontStyle:"Regular"} {appliedCharacterStyle:"DFKai"} {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false} Find Unicode font; change to DFKai character style.
Thanks for your help!
Gary Niemeier

You are absolutely correct. I don't know how those spaces got there! I copied the text from the "FindChangeList.txt" document, but somewhere along the way, a software program "helpfully" added the spaces. (Rest assured, it wasn't copied from AppleScript. I stick with JavaScript.) Anyway, the script now runs like a charm.
My thanks to you! Another "newbie" mistake easily spotted, eh?
One thing, though, if Adobe is reading this: please flesh out the "FindChangeList.txt" file for those who are not programmers/scripters. I'm just a normal InDesign user, and I really need examples of basic syntax in order to use the "Find/Change" script correctly. I'm referring to the syntax involved with finding or changing text with a certain character or paragraph style. I often search for styles, and those properties should be provided in the help file. A couple of samples are all that's needed. (I did read through the JavaScript reference guide provided by Adobe, and even in the "Find/Change" section, it did not provide this information!). Furthermore, I often search text for a specific font. Why isn't this syntax included as well? It would easy to do and would save users a lot of fumbling around.
Thanks again, all the best.

Using Find/Change in CS2

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