Describing inconsistent text

Join Michael Murphy for an in-depth discussion in this video Describing inconsistent text, part of Learning GREP with InDesign.

Course Overview
Transcript
View Offline
Exercise Files
FAQs

When text is 100% consistent, it's very easy to describe.…Inconsistent text is a bit more challenging, but can also be described with GREP.…In a previous movie, we set up a GREP style that automatically formatted…figure references in a document, and it successfully formatted only the figure…references that appear in parentheses, not the ones that didn't, but excluded…the parentheses from the formatting, using Positive Lookbehind and Positive Lookahead.…This is that document with that style applied.…I am on page 4, and as I scroll down, I can see my styled Figure 11 reference,…and down here later on the page, I see Figure 14 and Figure 15.…

So something is missing.…Something didn't get styled.…I will scroll back up, and you can see here, Figures 12 and 15.…They are not referred to in a consistent manner, as the other figures.…Let's take a look at the Paragraph style itself, and the GREP style built into…it to see what we've got so far.…I'll choose Edit>Auto Figure References, and go to the GREP Style area for that style.…

Resume Transcript Auto-Scroll

Author

Michael Murphy

Skill Level Intermediate

3h 45m

Duration

211,355

Views

Show More Show Less

Q: In the “Dynamically fixing orphaned words with GREP” tutorial the author uses the term:
(?<=\w)\s(?=\w+[[:punct:]]+$)
In an earlier course the author described the + (one or more) modifier as unusable in a lookbehind or lookahead i.e. (?<=.+). What's the difference here?

A: The limitation mentioned in an earlier movie referred only to positive lookbehind and negative lookbehind. I was able to use the one or more times (+) metacharacter in the positive lookahead portion of the expression because that limitation doesn't affect either positive or negative lookahead. It's only when looking backward that GREP ignores the repeat metacharacters.

Related Courses

Introduction
- Welcome
  1m 4s
- Using the exercise files
  29s
1. GREP Basics
- What is GREP?
  1m 53s
- Text searching vs. GREP searching
  2m 35s
- Working with GREP and InDesign
  3m 28s
2. Basic Metacharacters
- Using metacharacters, the building blocks of GREP
  6m 37s
- Escaping out metacharacters
  2m 49s
- Building with wild cards
  9m 9s
- Understanding undocumented wild card "opposites"
  3m 11s
- Specifying locations
  7m 4s
- Learning the undocumented location metacharacters
  4m 45s
- Using repeat metacharacters and defining the shortest match
  5m 45s
- Specifying exact matches and ranges
  2m 52s
- Finding content that doesn't exist with zero functions
  3m 52s
3. Advanced Metacharacters
- Creating "or" conditions
  5m 24s
- Building subexpressions
  5m 52s
- Using character sets to create custom wild cards
  7m 3s
- Using negative character sets
  3m 2s
- Finding around text with lookbehind and lookahead
  8m 1s
- Building with modifiers: Case sensitivity
  4m
- Building with modifiers: Single-line and multi-line
  3m 10s
- Using InDesign-compatible Posix expressions
  6m 54s
4. GREP Styles
- GREP styles vs. nested styles
  6m 10s
- Styling specific words or phrases
  3m 18s
- Describing inconsistent text
  6m 59s
- Describing and styling prices
  6m 55s
- Applying multiple character styles to the same text
  6m 8s
- Describing and styling email addresses
  10m 48s
- Dynamically fixing orphaned words with GREP
  9m
5. GREP Find/Change
- Adding more to the mix: GREP Find/Change
  1m 41s
- Understanding queries
  8m 20s
- Using formatting and styles as Find/Change criteria
  5m 20s
- Preserving and recalling using subexpressions
  7m 49s
- Backreferences in search queries
  3m 8s
- Cleaning up text with GREP
  2m 45s
- Creating a GREP-based text cleanup script
  4m 27s
6. A Practical Project with Advanced Find/Change and GREP
- Describing imported spreadsheet data
  6m 56s
- Rearranging imported spreadsheet data
  7m 17s
- Applying styles and formatting with GREP
  11m 14s
- Describing and standardizing phone numbers
  9m 20s
- Inserting anchored objects with GREP
  8m 58s
Conclusion
- Goodbye
  27s

Show MoreShow Less

Take notes with your new membership!

Type in the entry box, then click Enter to save your note.

1:30Press on any video thumbnail to jump immediately to the timecode shown.

Notes are saved with you account but can also be exported as plain text, MS Word, PDF, Google Doc, or Evernote.

Start Your Free Trial Now

Skills covered in this course

Describing inconsistent text

Author

Released

Skill Level Intermediate

Duration

Views

Q: In the “Dynamically fixing orphaned words with GREP” tutorial the author uses the term:
(?<=\w)\s(?=\w+[[:punct:]]+$)
In an earlier course the author described the + (one or more) modifier as unusable in a lookbehind or lookahead i.e. (?<=.+). What's the difference here?

Related Courses

InDesign Secrets

InDesign: 10 Things to Know About GREP

InDesign CS4 Beyond the Basics

Learning Regular Expressions

Introduction

1. GREP Basics

2. Basic Metacharacters

3. Advanced Metacharacters

4. GREP Styles

5. GREP Find/Change

6. A Practical Project with Advanced Find/Change and GREP

Conclusion

Take notes with your new membership!

Skills covered in this course

Continue Assessment

Start Your Free Trial Now

Describing inconsistent text

Author

Skill Level Intermediate

Duration

Views

Q: In the “Dynamically fixing orphaned words with GREP” tutorial the author uses the term:(?<=\w)\s(?=\w+[[:punct:]]+$)In an earlier course the author described the + (one or more) modifier as unusable in a lookbehind or lookahead i.e. (?<=.+). What's the difference here?

Related Courses

InDesign Secrets

InDesign: 10 Things to Know About GREP

InDesign CS4 Beyond the Basics

Learning Regular Expressions

Introduction

1. GREP Basics

2. Basic Metacharacters

3. Advanced Metacharacters

4. GREP Styles

5. GREP Find/Change

6. A Practical Project with Advanced Find/Change and GREP

Conclusion

Take notes with your new membership!

Skills covered in this course

Continue Assessment

Start Your Free Trial Now

Q: In the “Dynamically fixing orphaned words with GREP” tutorial the author uses the term:
(?<=\w)\s(?=\w+[[:punct:]]+$)
In an earlier course the author described the + (one or more) modifier as unusable in a lookbehind or lookahead i.e. (?<=.+). What's the difference here?