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• • September 4, 2013 at 10:10 am #65169
    Elaine

    Member

    I want to use GREP style to format a table of contents. I want to bold chapter titles, like:

    Chapter 1 and so on.

    However, some chapter titles will be followed by a “—” and “two words”.

    How can I do this? Thanks in advance. I hope I explained clear enough.

  • September 4, 2013 at 5:04 pm #65173
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    is this text in the middle of a paragraph? Or at the beginning of the paragraph, like in a TOC?

    You might be able to use this code:
    Chapter \d+? ?~_ ?\w+? \w+?

    But will it always have two words? GREP only works with very specific patterns.

  • September 4, 2013 at 6:04 pm #65175
    Elaine

    Member

    The beginning of a paragraph.

    That worked for the chapter title with the “—” and “two words” but not the others.

  • September 5, 2013 at 9:17 am #65177
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Can you provide more information? What did it not catch?

    As I said, GREP has to find a very precise pattern. So, for example there is no way for GREP to find both of these: “In Chapter 1 — Tools you will learn about the tools but in Chapter 2 — Use and Practice you will learn about other stuff.”

    It can’t do it because there is one word in the title in the first chapter title and three words in the next. How could InDesign/GREP possibly know what is a chapter title and what isn’t in these cases?

  • September 5, 2013 at 9:34 am #65179
    Elaine

    Member

    It didn’t catch

    Chapter “1” and so on. Maybe I’m going about this the wrong way. I know GREP can look for specific words but what if it’s a specific word followed by a number? Would that work or would it all have to be in the same paragraph?

  • September 12, 2013 at 5:39 am #65254
    Justin Sligh

    Member

    Elaine,

    Could you provide us with a brief list of chapter titles and describe again what you would like to have formatted?

  • September 12, 2013 at 6:56 am #65257
    Elaine

    Member

    okay, the chapter titles look like this:

    Chapter 1
    Chapter 2
    Chapter 3
    Chapter 4
    Chapter 5
    Chapter 6
    Chapter 7
    Chapter 8
    Chapter 9

    “Chapter” is the same and there’s a number after each heading. Is there a GREP style (to make the chapter and number bold) I can use for this?

  • September 12, 2013 at 8:12 am #65258
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I think there is a basic misunderstanding here. If you are just trying to make the word Chapter and the number bold (or whatever different style), then you should probably just set it up with a Nested Style, not a Grep Style. Nested Styles are good for things like “from the beginning of the paragraph to…” and they’re way easier to create. Do a search for Nested Styles to learn more.

    Also, at the beginning of this thread you said you wanted it to apply to the word chapter, then the number, then a dash, then the title of the chapter. That’s why it was so tricky. If you just want to search for “Chapter X” (where X is a number, you could use the grep: Chapter \d+? which searches for the word Chapter followed by a space followed by one or more numbers.

  • September 12, 2013 at 8:12 am #65259
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    I think there is a basic misunderstanding here. If you are just trying to make the word Chapter and the number bold (or whatever different style), then you should probably just set it up with a Nested Style, not a Grep Style. Nested Styles are good for things like “from the beginning of the paragraph to…” and they’re way easier to create. Do a search for Nested Styles to learn more.

    Also, at the beginning of this thread you said you wanted it to apply to the word chapter, then the number, then a dash, then the title of the chapter. That’s why it was so tricky. If you just want to search for “Chapter X” (where X is a number, you could use the grep: Chapter \d+? which searches for the word Chapter followed by a space followed by one or more numbers.

  • September 12, 2013 at 8:22 am #65260
    Elaine

    Member

    Thanks for your advice. I tried the simple grep you posted and it worked.

  • September 12, 2013 at 8:26 am #65261
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    Also, check out the table of contents movies in my lynda.com InDesign Essential Training title, plus:

    The InDesigner – Episode 34: Long Documents, Part 2 – Tables of Contents

    
    and
    https://creativepro.com/using-a-numbered-list-to-create-chapter-numbers-in-a-toc.php

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