Adobe InDesign CS5 - Manual (Page 175)

169 USING INDESIGN
Text
Last updated 11/16/2011
Metacharacters for searching
Metacharacters represent a character or symbol in InDesign. Metacharacters in the Text section of the Find/Change
dialog box begin with a caret
(^); metacharacters in the GREP section begin with a tilde (~) or backslash (\). You can
type metacharacters in the Text tab or GREP tab of the Find/Change dialog box.
Save time fixing punctuation errors by saving search strings as queries.
Single-line on
(?s)
(?s)c.a
The searches for any character ( . ) between
the letters c and a. The (?s) expression
matches any character, even if it falls on the
next line.
(.) matches anything other than a paragraph
return. (?s)(.) matches anything, including
paragraph returns.
abc abc abc abc abc abcabc abc
Single-line off (?-s)c.a abc abc abc abc abc abc abc abc
Repeat number of
times
{ }
b{3} matches exactly 3 times
b(3,} matches at least 3 times
b{3,}? matches at least 3 times (shortest
match)
b{2,3} matches at least 2 times and not more
than 3
b{2,3}? matches at least 2 times and not
more than 3 (shortest match)
abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc
Character: Text tab metacharacter: GREP tab metacharacter:
Tab Character ^t \t
End of Paragraph ^p \r
Forced Line Break ^n \n
Any Page Number ^# ~#
Current Page Number ^N ~N
Next Page Number ^X ~X
Previous Page Number ^V ~V
* Any Variable ^v ~v
Section Marker ^x ~x
* Anchored Object Marker ^a ~a
* Footnote Reference Marker ^F ~F
* Index Marker ^I ~I
Bullet Character ^8 ~8
Caret Character ^^ \^
Expression Search string Sample text Matches (in bold)