This InDesign tip on making space characters visible in GREP was sent to Tip of the Week email subscribers on September 14, 2017.
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Space characters are often not so easy to spot in GREP expressions. To make them visible in your code, use \x{0020}, which is the Unicode notation for the space character. Or use the code , which stands for any white space (including paragraph breaks and tabs).
For example, set[-]?up has the same meaning as set[- ]?up but is much clearer since someone looking at the code doesn’t have to guess if there’s a space there, or what is meant by the invisible space after the dash.
This article was last modified on July 25, 2019
This article was first published on September 19, 2017
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