duplicating a regularly occuring sequence of text immediately after itself

[ErikMaldre]

I’d like to duplicate a sequence of text immediately after itself.  Such sequence regularly occurs in my document. Example below.

Current text

1:1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

1:2 Consectetur adipiscing elit.

1:10 Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore;

14:7 Et dolore magna aliqua,

23:16 Ut enim ad minim veniam.

Note that the 0:0, 0:00, 00:0, 00:00 sequence already has its own character style applied. The sequence will always fit within that formula of 0:0, 0:00, 00:0, 00:00.

Desired outcome

1:11:1 Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

1:21:2 Consectetur adipiscing elit.

1:101:10 Sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore;

14:714:7 Et dolore magna aliqua,

23:1623:16 Ut enim ad minim veniam.

The desire is to duplicate the 0:0, 0:00, 00:0, 00:00 sequence after itself (with no space between the two), and to also apply a new character style to it.

I played around with Text Variables and GREP styling, but couldn’t figure it out. I’m not sure if the solution can be made with those options or if a script is needed. How can this be done? Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

[FRIdNGE · Accepted solution]

Find: (?s)^(\d+:\d+)\K(\h)

Replace by: $1$2 + Italic

Best,

Michel, from FRIdNGE

[ErikMaldre]

That worked brilliantly! Thank you very much Michel!