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Spenno
Spenno
Inspiring
March 11, 2026
Answered

How to Use GREP to Add Double Quotes at the Start and End of a Paragraph in InDesign

  • March 11, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 63 views

Hi! I’m hoping someone can help with a simple GREP to add double quotes to the start and end of a paragraph please so I can incorporate it into a style? (ie shift 2). Thanks!

    Correct answer Peter Spier

    This Grep should work to enclose a whole paragraph in Quotes: 

    Find ^.+$

    change ~{$0~}

    and If you need to limit it to specific paragraphs they need to have a unique style you can specify or you’ll have to select them...

    1 reply

    Peter Spier
    Community Expert
    Peter SpierCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    March 11, 2026

    If you mean to create a GREP style that will add quote characters to a paragraph where they are missing, you can’t do that. Grep Styles can only format existing text. To add missing characters you would need to use Find/Change, and you might want to script this if the intent is to add the quotes to all paragraphs that have a particular style assigned.

    Spenno
    SpennoAuthor
    Inspiring
    March 11, 2026

    Ah poo. Ok fair enough. I’m sure I’ve done something along these lines somehow… an idea to get the opening quote would be as a bullet, but not sure how to add the closing one!

    Peter Spier
    Community Expert
    Peter SpierCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    March 11, 2026

    This Grep should work to enclose a whole paragraph in Quotes: 

    Find ^.+$

    change ~{$0~}

    and If you need to limit it to specific paragraphs they need to have a unique style you can specify or you’ll have to select them...

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