Inspiring

Answered

GREP: don't select/exclude character after find result?

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
February 6, 2025
3 replies
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I have a doc full of text without spaces after colons, e.g. "Next Step:Organize Tools."

I want to add a space after the colon.

Terms like "Next Step" appear regularly throughout, and are easy to find; additionally, there are URLs in which I don't want to add space after a colon.

- - -

So, I can search for "Step:\S" which finds the colons, but it also selects the next letter, e.g. "Next Step:Organize Tools."

- - -

How do we tell GREP to NOT select the next character, and simply add a space after the colon?
FWIW I have the GREP in InDesign book, but don't know what this function is called & couldn't find it...

Thanks!

How to

Correct answer turner111

Thanks @Rob @FRIdNGE
I looked a bit closer at the book and indeed kind of found this solution, for example:

Find Step:(?=\S)

Replace Step:_ (that's just a space, not an underscore.)

@FRIdNGE , this seems to work, but is there an advantage to using $0? I think you're maybe just referring to the find result?

turner111AuthorCorrect answer

Inspiring

Thanks @Rob @FRIdNGE
I looked a bit closer at the book and indeed kind of found this solution, for example:

Find Step:(?=\S)

Replace Step:_ (that's just a space, not an underscore.)

@FRIdNGE , this seems to work, but is there an advantage to using $0? I think you're maybe just referring to the find result?

Yes! You simply search ":"

(^/)

turner111Author

Inspiring

Wouldn't that find every instance of ":" though?

Grep Find: :(?=\S)

Grep Replace by: $0

($0 followed by a normal space)

(^/) The Jedi

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

https://creativepro.com/topic/grep-tricks-using-lookbehind-and-lookahead-expressions-to-convert-a-space-into-a-non-break-space/

Robert at ID-Tasker

Legend

Or rather this - Positive Lookahead:

https://carijansen.com/positive-lookahead-grep-for-designers/