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Inspiring
January 10, 2023
Answered

Searching for apostrophes in FM...help!

  • January 10, 2023
  • 7 replies
  • 850 views

Trying to do a Find for apostrophes (I want to eliminate contractions) but seaarching by text or wildcard s doesn't seem to work, What's the secret?

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer frameexpert

    Did you try copying one from the document and pasting it into the find dialog box? That works for me.

    7 replies

    Participant
    January 24, 2023

    Im trytin to find acronyms in a book could i use this and change it to find opening and closing brackets ? ->( and ) ?

    davidcfrye5910298
    Inspiring
    January 16, 2023

    I'm not clear on how you're doing your search (script or Find/Replace panel). Long ago some kind soul on these forums pointed me in the right direction: 

     

    \x22 = straight quote

    \x27 = straight apostrophe

    \xd4 = curly left single quote

    \xd5 = curly right single quote (apostrophe)

    \xd2 = curly left double quote

    \xd3 = curly right double quote

     

    With the issues caused by smart quotes on/off and other issues surrounding copy/pasting from Word docs, I've found this to be the most reliable way to search. You don't need to figure out your settings or any of that, just search these out. 

    davidcfrye5910298
    Inspiring
    January 16, 2023

    I just clicked Jeff's link and see he had a link to an even earlier thread on this!

    K.Daube
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 11, 2023

    I found that when Smart Quotes is ON, typed text such as isn't is inserted as isn’t. Hence at first check for this setting in Format > Document > Text Options. With this option ON the Find forstraight quote (') will find the modified one (’). Independetly of this you may find all sorts of quotes by Search with RegEx:

    ['"‘’‚’„”‛‟]

     

    Inspiring
    January 10, 2023

    Turns out what worked is to copy the character, then search for "Text and character formats on clipboard."

    Community Expert
    January 11, 2023

    Only "Text" without the clipboard did not work? If you have these apostrophes in a heading or other paragraphs with a different font or font size, these apostrophes would not be found.

    When I have to search fo apostrophes, I also just copy the apostrophe into the Find text box. There are different apostrophes, and copy/paste is easier than looking up the code of a specific apostrophe in the online help.

    Inspiring
    January 11, 2023

    I tried copy-paste of the actual character in the text, tried typing the character as well. The only thing that seemed to work wsd copying the character and doing the search described above.

    Barb Binder
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 10, 2023

    Set it to text and just use the ' character on the keyboard to match the right single quote. That's the only one that is simple. 

     

    ~Barb

    ~Barb at Rocky Mountain Training
    frameexpert
    Community Expert
    frameexpertCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    January 10, 2023

    Did you try copying one from the document and pasting it into the find dialog box? That works for me.

    Inspiring
    January 11, 2023

    It didn't exactly work that way for me. Copying the character directly from the text and pasting it into the find dialogue box field didn't yield any results. It was only when I had the character copied to the clipboard and selected to search for "text and character formats on clipboard" that a search found them. 

    Jeff_Coatsworth
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 10, 2023