How to Standardize the Spelling of a Word in InDesign Using GREP
In this Three Minutes Max video, Erica Gamet shows how to standardize the spelling of a word in an InDesign document. Using GREP’s “or not” expression, she searches using Find/Change on a pattern of text that will fit all the spellings and changes to the preferred spelling. Although Erica is setting the preferred spelling for Hannuk– Chanuk– Hanukk– uh, the Festival of Lights, this would work year-round for everything from standardizing British/English spelling in the same document to formatting phone numbers.
Three Minutes Max comes from a fun—yet very competitive—session at our annual CreativePro Week conference. Speakers have three minutes to wow the audience with the tip and win a prize for a lucky conference attendee.
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Hi Erica, interesting trick! Note that the “H*C*h*X*…” pattern is probably not the most efficient though—and may have side effects with other forms of spelling. With respect to your example and targets, the pattern
(Ch|H|X)ann?uk[’k]+ah?
would seem more precise to me. I did a quick test in IndexMatic but I’m not sure the link will show up here:
https://twitter.com/indiscripts/status/1751051362622673232
Best,
Marc
Yes, of course there are more succinct (and efficient) ways of expressing this. But in a three minute tip for beginners, there are way too many concepts in your expression that would have to be explained first. I’m teaching people to walk with GREP before they can run!