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• • May 22, 2012 at 10:34 am #62243
    erickp

    Member

    I have a document with various tables that contain part numbers and descriptions. Various part numbers have changed and it will be easy to change them with a simple find & replace but I have a list of 150 parts that have been changed. Is there a way to enter all the multiple parts in the “find what” field and then add the correct parts to replace them in the “change to” field?

    A loose example would be….

    Find what:

    CV-BNC1N

    CV-BNC2N

    CV-BNC4N

    CV-BNC6N

    CV-BNC8N

    CV-BNC10N

    CV-BNC12N

    CV-BNC13N Change to: BEL-1505ABHDL BEL-1506ABHDL BEL-1694ABHDL BEL-1695ABHDL BEL-1855ABHDL BEL-179DTBHDL BEL-1505ABHD1 BEL-1506ABHD1

    The first “find what”, refers to the first “change to” and so on. Any help is appreciated. Thank you!

    ~Erick

  • May 23, 2012 at 5:53 am #62249
    Anonymous

    Inactive

    Hi,

    FindChangeByList is what you're after. It's a script bundled with InDesign. You can find it from within InDesign:

    Window > Utilities > Scripts > Application > Samples > Applescript > FindChangeByList.applescript

    Just underneath is a folder with the support file. It's a text file that you edit to tell the script what to find and what to change it to.

    Right click on that folder and reveal in finder. Duplicate the FindChangeList.txt file so you always have an original.

    Now you simply alter what's at the very bottom of the file after the double hyphen that follows this wording:

    –All InDesign search metacharacters are allowed in the “find what” and “change to” properties.

    —

    (FROM THIS POINT ON)

    If you copy and paste all that text (after that last double hypen) into Excel, you can then chop it apart to create the following:

    Column A

    text

    Column B

    {find what:”

    Column C

    (Blank at the moment because it will contain your find query)

    Column D

    “}

    Column E

    {change to:”

    Column F

    (Blank at the moment because it will contain your change to query)

    Column G

    “}

    Column H

    {include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false}

    Column I

    Changes the code

    Now duplicate the first row down 150 times. Paste your list of 150 Find codes into column C. Paste your list of 150 Change codes into column F.

    Now copy and paste all 150 rows into the FindChangeList.txt file, replacing the original find/change queries after that double hyphen.

    To finish off, find ” (a quote followed by a tab), and replace with a single quote mark ” without any spaces or tabs around it.

    Finally search for ” (tab followed by a quote), and replace with a single quote mark ” without any spaces or tabs around it.

    Save your text file.

    Go to InDesign and double-click FindChangeByList.applescript

    In theory, all your codes should now be updated.

  • May 30, 2012 at 8:04 am #62305
    erickp

    Member

    Interesting. I'll have to give it a go, when I get a chance. Need to finish current project and then I'll play around and report back.

    Thanks for your help!!

  • November 20, 2012 at 10:30 am #63585
    artstar

    Participant

    I am doing multiple find/replace with the FindChangeByList script.

    How can I search “Any character that is not a word character” or at least the “quotes”

    I am doing a lot of search replace with the FindChangeByList script, but a word with “quotes” doesn't work, for example I want to put “design” of the word indesign between qoutes:
    text {findWhat:”indesignsecrects”} {changeTo:”in”design”secrets”}

    Probably because it gets confused with the other quotes.

  • November 23, 2016 at 8:38 am #90032
    Nicki Muylst

    Member

    Hi,

    I’m trying to make this work with

    text {find what:”word 1″} {change to:”word 2″}{include footnotes:true, include master pages:true, include hidden layers:true, whole word:false} Find all Changes the code.

    I have an excel file with al the information.

    word 1 column A and word 2 column B

    I already downgraded to indesign 2014.
    But it don’t work.

    Can you give me an example .txt file

    Thank you in advance.

    • November 23, 2016 at 9:29 am #90034
      David Blatner

      Keymaster

      I suggest reading through the various articles about findchangebylist on this site: https://creativepro.com/tag/findchangebylist

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