GREP and Metacharacters in the InDesign CC Find/Change dialog

Description
Text GREP
Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^t . . . . . . . . . . \t
Forced Line Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^n . . . . . . . . . . \n
End of Paragraph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^p . . . . . . . . . . \r
Symbols
Text GREP
Bullet Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^8 . . . . . . . . . ~8
Carat Character ^ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^^ . . . . . . . . . \^
Backslash Character \ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \ . . . . . . . . . . . \\
Copyright Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^2 . . . . . . . . . ~2
Ellipsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^e . . . . . . . . . ~e
Paragraph Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^7 . . . . . . . . . ~7
Registered Trademark Symbol . . . . . . ^r . . . . . . . . . ~r
Section Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^6 . . . . . . . . . ~6
Trademark Symbol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^d . . . . . . . . . ~d
Open Parenthesis ( . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( . . . . . . . . . . . \(
Closed Parenthesis ) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ) . . . . . . . . . . . \)
Open Brace Character { . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . { . . . . . . . . . . . \{
Closed Brace Character } . . . . . . . . . . . . . . } . . . . . . . . . . . \}
Open Bracket Character [ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [ . . . . . . . . . . . \[
Closed Bracket Character ] . . . . . . . . . . . . ] . . . . . . . . . . . \]
Markers
Text GREP
Any Page Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^# . . . . . . . . . ~#
Current Page Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^N . . . . . . . . . ~N
Next Page Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^X . . . . . . . . . ~X
Previous Page Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^V . . . . . . . . . ~V
Section Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^x . . . . . . . . . ~x
Anchored Object Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^a . . . . . . . . . ~a
Footnote Reference Marker . . . . . . . . . . ^F . . . . . . . . . ~F
Index Reference Marker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^I . . . . . . . . . . ~I
Hyphens and Dashes
Text GREP
Em Dash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^_ . . . . . . . . . ~_
En Dash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^= . . . . . . . . ~=
Discretionary Hyphen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^- . . . . . . . . . ~Nonbreaking Hyphen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^~ . . . . . . . . ~~
White Space
Text GREP
Em Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^m . . . . . . . . ~m
En Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^> . . . . . . . . . ~>
Flush Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^f . . . . . . . . . ~f
Hair Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^| . . . . . . . . . . ~|
Nonbreaking Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^S . . . . . . . . . ~S
Nonbreaking Space (Fixed Width) . . . . . ^s . . . . . . . . . ~s
Thin Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^< . . . . . . . . ~<
Figure Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^/ . . . . . . . . . ~/
Punctuation Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^. . . . . . . . . . . ~.
Third Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^3 . . . . . . . . . ~3
Quarter Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^4 . . . . . . . . . ~4
Sixth Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^% . . . . . . . . ~%

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Quotation Marks
Text GREP
Any Double Quotation Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Any Single Quotation Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Straight Double Quotation Marks . . . . ^ . . . . . . . . . ~
Double Left Quotation Marks . . . . . . . . ^{ . . . . . . . . . ~{
Double Right Quotation Marks . . . . . . ^} . . . . . . . . . ~}
Straight Single Quotation Mark . . . . . . ^ . . . . . . . . . . ~
Single Left Quotation Mark . . . . . . . . . . ^[ . . . . . . . . . ~[
Single Right Quotation Mark . . . . . . . . ^] . . . . . . . . . ~]
Break Character
Text GREP
Standard Carriage Return . . . . . . . . . . . . ^b . . . . . . . . . ~b
Column Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^M . . . . . . . . ~M
Frame Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^R . . . . . . . . . ~R
Page Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^P . . . . . . . . . ~P
Odd Page Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^L . . . . . . . . . ~L
Even Page Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^E . . . . . . . . . ~E
Discretionary Line Break . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^k . . . . . . . . . ~k
Variable
Text GREP
Any Variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^v . . . . . . . . . ~v
Running Header (Paragraph Style) . . . . ^Y . . . . . . . . . ~Y
Running Header (Character Style) . . . . . ^Z . . . . . . . . . ~Z
Custom Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^u . . . . . . . . . ~u
Last Page Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^T . . . . . . . . . ~T
Chapter Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^H . . . . . . . . . ~H
Creation Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^O . . . . . . . . . ~O
Modification Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^o . . . . . . . . . ~o
Output Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^D . . . . . . . . . ~D
File Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^1 . . . . . . . . . ~1
Metadata Caption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^J . . . . . . . . . ~J
Other
Text GREP
Right Indent Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^y . . . . . . . . . ~y
Indent to Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^i . . . . . . . . . . ~i
End Nested Style Here . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^h . . . . . . . . . ~h
Non-Joiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^j . . . . . . . . . . ~j
Clipboard Contents, Formatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~c
Clipboard Contents, Unformatted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ~C
Wildcards
Text GREP
Any Digit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^9 . . . . . . . . . . \d
Any Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^$ . . . . . . . [\l\u]
Any Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^? . . . . . . . . . . .
Any White Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^w . . . . . . . . . . \s
Any Word Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \w
Any Lowercase Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \l
Any Uppercase Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \u
Locations GREP
Beginning of Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \<
End of Word . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \>
Word Boundary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \b

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Beginning of Paragraph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^
End of Paragraph . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $
Beginning of Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \A
End of Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \Z
Repeat GREP
Zero or One Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ?
Zero or More Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *
One or More Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +
Zero or One Time (Shortest Match) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ??
Zero or More Times (Shortest Match) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . *?
One or More Times (Shortest Match) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +?
Match GREP
Marking Subexpression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ()
Non-Marking Subexpression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?:)
Character Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . []
Or . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .|
Positive Lookbehind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?<=)
Negative Lookbehind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?<!)
Positive Lookahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?=)
Negative Lookahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?!)
Modifiers GREP
Case-Insensitive On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?i)
Case-Insensitive Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?-i)
Multiline On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?m)
Multiline Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?-m)
Single-Line On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?s)
Single-Line Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?-s)
Ignore Whitespace On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?w)
Ignore Whitespace Off . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (?-w)
Posix GREP
Any alphanumeric character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:alnum:]]
Any alphabetic character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .[[:alpha:]]
Only digits 0 to 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:digit:]]
Any lowercase character a to z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:lower:]]
Any punctuation and symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:punct:]]
Any whitespace and break . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:space:]]
Any uppercase character A to Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:upper:]]
Any letter, number, and underscore . . . . . . . . . [[:word:]]
Any hexadecimal 0-9, a-f, and A-F . . . . . . . . . . . [[:xdigit:]]
Any character of a certain glyph set . . . . . . . . . . . [[=a=]]
(such as a, , , , , , , A, , , , , , )
Any blank character, ie space or tab . . . . . . . . . [[:blank:]]
Any control character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:cntrl:]]
Any visible character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:graph:]]
Any visible characters and spaces . . . . . . . . . . . . [[:print:]]
Any character code greater than 255 . . . . . . [[:unicode:]]
(applies only to the wide character traits classes)

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Found (Change Field)

GREP
Found Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $0
Found 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $1
Found 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $2
Found 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $3
Found 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $4
Found 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5
Found 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $6
Found 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $7
Found 8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $8
Found 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $9
More undocumented GREP codes
Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{letter}
Lowercase letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{lowercase_letter}
Uppercase letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{uppercase_letter}
Titlecase letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{titlecase_letter}
Spacing modifier letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\p{modifier_letter}
Non-case non-modifier letters . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{letter_other}
Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{mark}
Diacritical and tone marks . . . . . . . . . . \p{non_spacing_mark}
Vowels SE Asian languages . . \p{spacing_combining_mark}
Circles, squares, keycaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{enclosing_mark}
Spaces, returns, 2028, 2029 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .\p{separator}
All spaces except tab & return . . . . . . . . . \p{space_separator}
Line separator character 2028 . . . . . . . . . . . \p{line_separator}
Paragraph separator 2029 . . . . . . . . \p{paragraph_separator}
Math and Wingdings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{symbol}
Math symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{math_symbol}
Currency symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{currency_symbol}
Modifier symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{modifier_symbol}
Wingdings, dingbats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{other_symbol}
Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{number}
Digits 0 to 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{decimal_digit_number}
Roman numerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{letter_number}
Other numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{other_number}
Punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{punctuation}
Hyphens and dashes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{dash_punctuation}
Opening parentheses, braces . . . . . . . . \p{open_punctuation}
Closing parentheses, brackets . . . . . . . \p{close_punctuation}
Opening quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{initial_punctuation}
Closing quotes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{final_punctuation}
Underscore, 203F, 2040, 2054 . . . \p{connector_punctuation}
Other punctuation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{other_punctuation}
Other . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{other}
Control characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{control}
Formatting character markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{format}
E000F8FF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{private_use}
Unassigned Unicode range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . \p{unassigned}

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GREP and InDesign CC some useful search examples

1.Find ALL CAPS paragraphs
Find: \u\u+(\.\?\r?)$
Change with formatting: paragraph style

6.Find and delete soft return line breaks

Find: \s?\n
Change: with single spacebar space

Note: When your untagged text has occasional paragraphs

typed in all caps, this script finds two or more uppercase
letters followed by a period and a hard return. This is
enough to find such paragraphs and tag them. Step 2, run
ChangeCaseofSelectedStyle.jsx, a script by Dave Saunders of
PDSAssoc.com. This converts case.

Note: Soft returns replaced by spacebar space

2.Find ALL CAPS words

Find: \<[A-Z]{2,}\>
Change: with formatting: OpenType All Caps

Note: This finds the quotes but leaves them out since it only
changes to found group 2; not 1 and 3.

Note: The minimal length {2,} is to prevent it picking up all

single capitals (remove if you want those as well). Ideally, you
search full caps with this regular expression and replace them
with OpenType All Caps. Any other way will need handwork
or a script. For international text, you should search for
\<\u{2,}\> (the \u uppercase wildcard also finds capital )

3.Find capital letters like acronyms

Find: \u\u+ or Find: >\<\u\u+\>
Change: with formatting; such as AllSmallCaps
Note: This finds 2 or more uppercase letters. The \< and \>
are word delimiters, so it won't alter anything else than caps
words. If the Replace field is empty and it has formatting, it
applies the formatting to the found text. Only if there is also
no formatting, it replaces with nothing.

\(?(\d{3})\)?[-. ]?(\d{3})[-. ]?(\d{4})

Change: $1.$2.$3
Or Change: $1-$2-$3 or Change: ($1) $2-$3

7.Find quoted words and change to italic

Find: (~{)(\u*\l*\s*.*\w*\d*)(~})
Change: $2 and italic character style formatting

8.Find all email addresses

Find: [\l\u\d_%-]+@[\l\u\d_%-]+
Change: with formatting
Note: The _, %, and hyphen were added because those
characters are not included in the wildcard codes. The square
brackets group the codes together. The + indicates that these
characters can appear any number of times, or not at all. The
@ sign is outside the group to appear only once. The group is
then repeated for the rest of the address.

9.Capitalize first letter of word after bullet

Find: (.)(\t)(\l)
Change: $1$2$3

4.Swap List of First Names and Last Names

Find: (.+) (.+)
Change: $2, $1
Note: This finds something to the left and right of a space; and
puts them back in reversed with a comma and space

Note: This finds with brackets (could be parentheses)

13.Search for dates to format

Find: \d\d?-\d\d?-(\d\d)?\d\d
Change: with formatting from the character styles
panel
Notes: This sequence finds dates formatted like 09-04-2008 as
well as 9-4-08, and allows you to apply a character style.

14.Replace multiple terms with one term

Find: illustration | graph | map | chart
Change: figure
Note: The list of alternative words must be separated by the
vertical bar, and each alternative is replaced with the replace
term. GREP is case sensitive by default; so to replace caseinsensitively, add (?i) before the expression.

15.Find or remove trailing characters after

numbers, as in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
Find:
(?<=\d)+st|(?<=\d)+th|(?<=\d)+nd|(?<=\d)+rd
Change: leave blank, to strip out; or apply
formatting of superscript character style

11.Search for words within brackets

Find: (?<=\[)\w{4,20}(?=\])
Change: with formatting

Note: In this example, we are looking for the two-letter

trailing characters to strip off the number. The pipe character
is an OR statement. So, the search repeats itself four times,
saying that if the characters occur where there is a digit
preceding it, then the characters will be removed. If you
surround the text with parentheses, you could superscript the
found text instead of stripping it out.

Note: This finds within but not including brackets

This finds em dashes without thin spaces and puts them in.

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Note: This finds a sequence of 3, 3, and 4 digits. The ? symbol

indicates that the element can exist zero or one time in the
string, so the code [-. ]? means that a hyphen, dot, or space
may or may not exist between the digits. Replace can use
periods, parentheses, or hyphens, as you wish.

Note: In the Replace formatting set text to uppercase

10.Search for words with brackets

Find: \[\w{4,20}\]
Change: with formatting

5.Thin spaces around em dashes

Find: (?<!~<)(~_)(?!~<)
Change: ~<$0~<

12.Search for phone numbers to regularize

Find: \d?[-. ]?

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16.TitleCase applied except for small words

Find: :\s\l|[-\s]\l(?!(f|he|nd?|o|y|rom|or|ut)?\b)
Change: formatting to All Caps styling
Note: Search the selection. Leave the Change what field blank.
This wont work on all uppercase text! This also converts to
uppercase any word that follows a colon or a hyphen.

17.Undocumented negation in Wildcards

Not documented in the Wildcards flyout is that the
uppercase version of the wildcards negates them.
Note: Thus, \D finds everything that is not a digit; \U finds
everything that is not an uppercase letter, and \L finds
everything that is not a lowercase letter, etc.

18.Find underlining and replace with italics

Find Formatting: Underline
Change Formatting: Italic character style
This uses Text; not GREP, and is good because character styles
control better than direct formatting. Note: Have pre-built
character styles for bold, italic, and bold italic. Also, have
superscript, smallcaps, and other character styles defining
swatch colors pre-built for use in Find/Change as well as
nested styles.

19.Interpret GREP into English

RegexBuddy (http://www.regexbuddy.com/)
Notes: To see the translation, click the Create tab after
entering a regular expression. You will see that the program
has listed your expression as a sequence of icons/explanations.
Windows-only.

Michael Witherell | mikewitherell@jetsetcom.

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