CreativePro Forum

Return to Member Forum

• Author
  Posts
• • June 4, 2015 at 6:26 am #75814
    clyde bielss

    Member

    I’m very very new to greps and I’m trying to write a search that will find tags we use and change the format between the tags but i’m having problems with the character [ used in our tags.

    I want to search [bold] with any word or group of words here [bold] and format the text between with a font style.

    thank you in advance.

  • June 4, 2015 at 7:06 am #75815
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    (?<=\[).+?(?=\])

    (?<=) is a positive lookbehind (it looks but does not include in the find

    \[ is an open bracket, you need to escape the open bracket with a backslash

    .+ is any character
    ? is a qualifier for the shortest match, so stop and don’t find more than the shortest match

    (?=) is a positive lookahead
    \] is a closed bracket

    All together, it’s – look for an open bracket but don’t include it, then find any text in it’s shortest string, up to, but don’t include a closed bracket.

    This finds all text within a [….]

  • June 4, 2015 at 7:32 am #75816
    clyde bielss

    Member

    you are amazing sir! thank you

  • June 4, 2015 at 7:35 am #75817
    clyde bielss

    Member

    the code i was looking for will really be (?<=\[bold]).+?(?=\[bold])

    but your help is amazing :)

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:02 am #75818
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Clyde, what do you mean by [bold]. Is it a bold character or is it the word ‘bold’ within the square brackets.

    If it is the word ‘bold’ within square brackets then here is the code for you:

    Find What: (?<=(\[bold\])).+?(?=(\[bold\]))

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:07 am #75819
    clyde bielss

    Member

    it is the word bold in the brackets – our copy writers use tags in copy like [bold], [header] and so on. so i want to make is so it does what the tag says then deletes the tags they make.

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:12 am #75820
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Then this will suit you best:

    Find What: (?<=(\[bold\])).+?(?=(\[bold\]))
    Change to: Change Format: bold character style

    Hope this works :)

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:13 am #75821
    clyde bielss

    Member

    your code works great, but is there a way to delete the [bold] tags in the same line without having to run a find replace?

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:13 am #75822
    clyde bielss

    Member

    awesome i’ll try that :)

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:17 am #75823
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Yes there is:

    Find What: (\[bold\])(.+?)(\[bold\])
    Change to: $2
    Change Format: bold character style

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:31 am #75824
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hmmm.. I see I’m not needed here – good work :)

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:43 am #75825
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    Eugene, your suggestions are always welcome. I too have learned a lot from your replies. You’re amazing. Your help is and will always be needed. It is just that I love GREP, and wants to explore more…

    Please don’t take it otherwise :)

  • June 4, 2015 at 8:49 am #75826
    clyde bielss

    Member

    yes eugene your help earlier was awesome :) all of these reply have given me a better understanding of what is going on :)

  • June 4, 2015 at 9:24 am #75830
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Guys, relax, I was kidding – the smiley face didn’t come through :)

    GREP is amazing, and Masood is very good at it, it’s always good to have other forum users with extraordinary abilities too.

  • June 4, 2015 at 11:47 am #75834
    Masood Ahmad

    Participant

    The smiley :) :) :) :) is here…

• Author
  Posts