Adobe InDesign CS5 - Manual (Page 174)

168 USING INDESIGN
Text
Last updated 11/16/2011
Expression Search string Sample text Matches (in bold)
Class of characters
[ ]
[abc]
Finds the letter a, b, or c.
Maria cuenta bien. Mariacuentabien.
Beginning of paragraph
^
^~_.+
This searches the beginning of the
paragraph (^) for an em dash (~_) followed
by any character ( . ) one or more times (+).
“We saw—or at least we think
we saw—a purple cow.”
—Konrad Yoes
“We saw—or at least we think we
saw—a purple cow.”
—Konrad Yoes
Negative lookahead
(?!pattern)
InDesign (?!CS.*?)
The negative lookahead matches the search
string only if it is not followed by the
specified pattern.
InDesign, InDesign 2.0,
InDesign CS, and InDesign CS2 InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign
CS, and InDesign CS2
Positive lookahead
(?=pattern)
InDesign (?=CS.*?)
The positive lookahead matches the search
string only if it is followed by the specified
pattern.
Use similar patterns for negative
lookbehinds (?pattern) and positive
lookbehinds (?<=pattern).
InDesign, InDesign 2.0,
InDesign CS, and InDesign CS2 InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS,
and InDesign CS2
Groupings
( )
(quick) (brown) (fox) The quick brown fox jumps up
and down. The quick brown fox jumps up and
down.
All found text = quick brown fox;
Found Text 1= quick; Found Text 2 =
brown; Found Text 3= fox
Non-marking
parentheses
(?:expression)
(quick) ($:brown) (fox) The quick brown fox jumps up
and down. The quick brown fox jumps up and
down.
All found text = quick brown fox;
Found Text 1= quick; Found Text 2 =
fox
Case-insensitive on
(?i)
(?i)apple
You can also use (?i:apple)
Apple apple APPLE AppleappleAPPLE
Case-insensitive off
(?-i)
(?-i)apple Apple apple APPLE Apple apple APPLE
Multiline on
(?m)
(?m)^\w+
In this example, the expression looks for one
or more (+) word characters (\w) at the
beginning of a line (^). The (?m) expression
allows all lines within the found text to be
treated as separate lines.
(?m)^\w matches the beginning of each
paragraph. (?-m)^\w matches only the
beginning of the story.
One Two Three Four Five Six
Seven Eight One Two ThreeFour Five SixSeven
Eight
Multiline off
(?-m)
(?-m)^\w+ One Two Three Four Five Six
Seven Eight One Two Three Four Five Six Seven
Eight