How to do these things with find/replace?

[Horizon3]

Hello All, 

I know the GREP topic has been discussed extensively on the forum and I sincerely hope my questions are not repetitive (I have searched the forum but have not found the answers to my questions, which makes me hopeful my questions will not be duplicates).

Using the find/replace function, how do you

1). Change Multiple Space to Single space in a document?

2). Find Multiple Return and change to Single return?

3). Remove spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs?

4). Remove extra tabs?

5). Change straight quotes to curly quotes?

Please realise I have zero knowledge about GREP. I only know that 2 of the 5 tasks outlined in my questions are carried out using GREP and so I need to know how to do these things in APu. 

Thank you.

[anto]

4 hours ago, Horizon3 said:

1). Change Multiple Space to Single space in a document?

\s+ ---> space

4 hours ago, Horizon3 said:

2). Find Multiple Return and change to Single return?

Goto Find->Special characters->Paragraph Break

add + at the end and replace with Paragraph Break

4 hours ago, Horizon3 said:

3). Remove spaces at the beginning and end of paragraphs?

In the beginning:

^\s+ ---> space

at the end:

(\s)+ paragraph break sign replace to paragraph break

4 hours ago, Horizon3 said:

4). Remove extra tabs?

Goto Find->Special characters->Tab

add + and replace with Tab

4 hours ago, Horizon3 said:

5). Change straight quotes to curly quotes?

copy quotes which you want to replace and paste them into the appropriate windows

[walt.farrell]

You might find this web site of interest for learning more about Regular Expression processing: https://www.regular-expressions.info

 

[Horizon3]

@anto many thanks! I was going to ask you how you know these GREP commands (i.e., where you learned them) so I could learn them, but @walt.farrell removed the need for that question. Thank you, Walt, for sharing that website. Before posting my questions, I searched and found other websites about regular expressions but it seems the websites were for seasoned programmers so everything was codswallop to me. Regular Expressions info seems to be written with true beginners like myself in mind. 

Again my thanks. 

[anto]

2 hours ago, Horizon3 said:

I was going to ask you how you know these GREP commands (i.e., where you learned them)

I didn't study them. I looked it up myself on Internet. I often have to edit a lot of text, and to make my life easier, I first look for ways to automate this process. Then everything is very easy to edit.

For practice, you can also use the website https://regex101.com/

[Horizon3]

6 hours ago, anto said:

I didn't study them. I looked it up myself on Internet.

I see.

6 hours ago, anto said:

I often have to edit a lot of text, and to make my life easier, I first look for ways to automate this process. Then everything is very easy to edit.

Yes, that's why I need to learn how to use them. I've used regular expressions/ GREP before but only the ones I asked about. However, they made the layout and editing process so much easier that they're one of the first things I looked for in APu. And thanks for the website recommendation. I came across that sight when I was trying to find the answers to my questions before I posted them. No idea how to use that sight but maybe once I complete the tutorial on  https://www.regular-expressions.info, it will start making sense. 

[Catshill]

On 8/2/2023 at 5:06 AM, anto said:

On 8/2/2023 at 12:08 AM, Horizon3 said:

2). Find Multiple Return and change to Single return?

Goto Find->Special characters->Paragraph Break

add + at the end and replace with Paragraph Break

I find APu unable to find paragraph breaks with Find and Replace. I thought this was a bug?

Ref 

 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Catshill said:

I find APu unable to find paragraph breaks with Find and Replace. I thought this was a bug?

Ref

That topic is about something entirely different. It would be better for you to start a new topic and explain your problem, with screenshots and if possible a sample .afpub document that demonstrates the problem.

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

That topic is about something entirely different. It would be better for you to start a new topic and explain your problem, with screenshots and if possible a sample .afpub document that demonstrates the problem.

In the 'Datamerger' topic mentioned above I replied to @Catshill's comment there with what I believe to be an explanation of how F&R can be used to find paragraph & other breaks....

[Catshill]

10 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

That topic is about something entirely different. It would be better for you to start a new topic and explain your problem, with screenshots and if possible a sample .afpub document that demonstrates the problem.

That topic was but this one isn’t.

[R C-R]

14 minutes ago, Catshill said:

That topic was but this one isn’t.

So it is unclear why you posted about it here?

[walt.farrell]

17 minutes ago, Catshill said:

That topic was but this one isn’t.

Thus one is also another user's topic about specific problems they are having. 

For your problem, it would be better to post your own topic, especially if you think the application is not working correctly.

[Catshill]

@walt.farrell @R C-R I thought this was already registered as a bug but given not, point taken and my apologies. I’ll start a new thread.

[artjourney]

Someone should definitely start a thread where regular expressions snippets like this are stored in one place. I’m sure a lot of us here have similar problems that can be solved with RegEx.

On 8/2/2023 at 12:06 AM, anto said:

\s+ ---> space

Goto Find->Special characters->Paragraph Break

add + at the end and replace with Paragraph Break

In the beginning:

^\s+ ---> space

at the end:

(\s)+ paragraph break sign replace to paragraph break

Goto Find->Special characters->Tab

add + and replace with Tab

copy quotes which you want to replace and paste them into the appropriate windows

 

[Horizon3]

An excellent idea @artjourney!