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Search using GREP expressions
On the GREP tab of the Find/Change
dialog box, you can construct GREP expressions to find alphanumeric
strings and patterns in long documents or many open documents. You
can enter the GREP metacharacters manually or choose them from the
Special Characters For Search list. GREP searches are case-sensitive
by default.
Choose Edit > Find/Change,
and click the GREP tab.
At the bottom of the dialog box, specify the range of your
search from the Search menu, and click icons to include locked layers,
master pages, footnotes, and other items in the search.
In the Find What box, do any of the following to construct
a GREP expression:
Enter the search expression manually.
(See Metacharacters for searching.)
Click the Special Characters For Search icon to the right
of the Find What option and choose options from the Locations, Repeat,
Match, Modifiers, and Posix submenus to help construct the search
expression.
In the Change To box, type or paste the replacement text.
Click Find.
To continue searching, click Find Next, Change (to change
the current occurrence), Change All (a message indicates the total
number of changes), or Change/Find (to change the current occurrence
and search for the next one.
 You can also use GREP Styles to apply
a character style to text that conforms to a GREP expression. In
fact, the GREP Styles dialog box is a good way to test your GREP expression.
Add the examples you want to find to a paragraph, and then specify
a character style and GREP expression in the GREP Styles dialog
box. When you turn on Preview, you can edit the expression until
it affects all your examples properly. Tips for constructing GREP searchesHere are some tips for constructing GREP expressions.
Many searches under the GREP tab are similar to those under
the Text tab, but be aware that you need to insert different codes
depending on which tab you’re using. In general, the Text tab metacharacters
begin with a ^ (such as ^t for a tab) and GREP tab metacharacters
begin with a \ (such as \t for a tab). However, not all metacharacters
follow this rule. For example, a paragraph return is ^p in the Text
tab and \r in the GREP tab. For a list of the metacharacters used
for the Text and GREP tabs, see Metacharacters for searching.
To search for a character that has symbolic meaning in GREP,
enter a backslash (\) before the character to indicate that the
character that follows is literal. For example, a period ( . ) searches
for any character in a GREP search; to search for an actual period,
enter “\.”
Save the GREP search as a query if you intend to run it often
or share it with someone else. (See Find/change items using queries.)
Use parentheses to divide your search into subexpressions.
For example, if you want to search for “cat” or “cot,” you can use
the c(a|o)t string. Parentheses are especially useful to identify
groupings. For example, searching for “the (cat) and the (dog)”
identifies “cat” as Found Text 1 and “dog” as Found Text 2. You can
use the Found Text expressions (such as $1 for Found Text 1) to
change only part of the found text.
GREP search examplesFollow these examples to learn how to take
advantage of GREP expressions.
Example 1: Finding text within quotation marksSuppose
you want to search for any word enclosed in quotation marks (such
as “Spain”), and you want to remove the quotation marks and apply
a style to the word (so that it becomes Spain instead
of “Spain”). The expression (")(\W+)(") includes
three groupings, as indicated by parentheses ( ). The first and
third groupings search for any quotation mark, and the second grouping searches
for one or more word characters.
You can use the Found Text
expressions to refer to these groupings. For example, $0 refers
to all found text, and $2 refers to only the second grouping. By
inserting $2 in the Change To field and specifying a character style
in the Change Format field, you can search for a word within quotation
marks, and then replace the word with a character style. Because
only $2 is specified, the $1 and $3 groupings are removed. (Specifying
$0 or $1$2$3 in the Change To field would apply the character style
to the quotation marks as well.)
 GREP example - A.
- Finds all word characters enclosed in quotation marks
- B.
- Change
applies only to the second grouping
- C.
- Character
style applied
This
example searches only for single words enclosed in parentheses.
If you want to search for phrases enclosed in parentheses, add wildcard
expressions, such as (\s*.*\w*\d*), which looks for spaces, characters,
word characters, and digits.
Example 2: Phone numbersInDesign includes
a number of search presets that you can choose from the Queries
menu. For example, you can choose the Phone Number Conversion query,
which looks like this:
\(?(\d\d\d)\)?[-. ]?(\d\d\d)[-. ]?(\d\d\d\d)
Phone
numbers in the United States can appear in a variety of formats,
such as 206-555-3982, (206) 555-3982, 206.555.3982, and 206 555
3982. This string looks for any of these variations. The first three
digits (\d\d\d) of the phone number may or may not be enclosed in
parentheses, so a question mark appears after the parentheses: \(?
and \)?. Note that the backslash \ indicates that the actual parenthesis
is being searched for and that it’s not part of a subexpression.
The brackets [ ] locate any character within them, so in this case,
[-. ] finds either a hyphen, a period, or a space. The question
mark after the brackets indicate that the items within it are optional
in the search. Finally, the digits are enclosed in parentheses, which
signify groupings that can be referred to in the Change To field.
You
can edit the grouping references in the Change To field to suit
your needs. For example, you could use these expressions:
206.555.3982
= $1.$2.$3
206-555-3982 = $1-$2-$3
(206) 555-3982 =
($1) $2-$3
206 555 3982 = $1 $2 $3
Additional GREP examplesExperiment with
these examples to learn more about GREP searches.
Expression
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Search string
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Sample text
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Matches (in bold)
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Class of characters
[ ]
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[abc] or [abc]
Finds the letter a,
b, or c.
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Maria cuenta bien.
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Maria cuentabien.
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Beginning of paragraph
^
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^~_.+
This searches the beginning
of the paragraph (^) for an em dash (~_) followed by any character
( . ) one or more times (+).
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“We saw—or at least we think we saw—a purple
cow.”
—Konrad Yoes
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“We saw—or at least we think we saw—a purple
cow.”
—Konrad Yoes
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Negative lookahead
(?!pattern)
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InDesign (?!CS.*?)
The negative lookahead
matches the search string only if it is not followed by the specified
pattern.
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InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS, and
InDesign CS2
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InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign
CS, and InDesign CS2
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Positive lookahead
(?=pattern)
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InDesign (?=CS.*?)
The positive lookahead
matches the search string only if it is followed by the specified
pattern.
Use similar patterns for negative lookbehinds (?<!pattern)
and positive lookbehinds (?<=pattern).
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InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS, and
InDesign CS2
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InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS,
and InDesign CS2
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Groupings
( )
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(quick) (brown) (fox)
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The quick brown fox jumps up and down.
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The quick brown fox jumps up and
down.
All found text = quick brown fox; Found Text 1= quick; Found
Text 2 = brown; Found Text 3= fox
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Non-marking parentheses
(?:expression)
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(quick) ($:brown) (fox)
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The quick brown fox jumps up and down.
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The quick brown fox jumps up and
down.
All found text = quick brown fox; Found Text 1= quick; Found
Text 2 = fox
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Case-insensitive on
(?i)
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(?i)apple
You can also use (?i:apple)
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Apple apple APPLE
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AppleappleAPPLE
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Case-insensitive off
(?-i)
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(?-i)apple
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Apple apple APPLE
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Apple apple APPLE
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Multiline on
(?m)
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(?m)^\w+
In this example, the expression
looks for one or more (+) word characters (\w) at the beginning
of a line (^). The (?m) expression allows all lines within the found
text to be treated as separate lines.
(?m)^\w matches the
beginning of each paragraph. (?-m)^\w matches only the beginning
of the story.
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One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight
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One Two ThreeFour Five SixSeven Eight
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Multiline off
(?-m)
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(?-m)^\w+
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One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight
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One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Eight
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Single-line on
(?s)
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(?s)c.a
The searches for any character
( . ) between the letters c and a. The (?s) expression matches any
character, even if it falls on the next line.
(.) matches
anything other than a paragraph return. (?s)(.) matches anything,
including paragraph returns.
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abc abc abc abc
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abc abcabc abc
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Single-line off
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(?-s)c.a
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abc abc abc abc
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abc abc abc abc
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Repeat number of times
{ }
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b{3} matches exactly 3 times
b(3,}
matches at least 3 times
b{3,}? matches at least 3 times (shortest
match)
b{2,3} matches at least 2 times and not more than 3
b{2,3}?
matches at least 2 times and not more than 3 (shortest match)
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abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
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abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc
abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc abbbc
abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc
abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
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PDF (adobe.com)
