Find & replace simple text not finding examples...

[Spenno]

Hi InDesign wizards. I've often been stumped why I can't find/replace text when my parameters are correct when I know there are instances of text in the document that match the parameters exactly. I've attached a screenshot of an example. Initially I was looking for white text, point size 17.279, in the font Humanist 721 Extra Black. That found nothing (even though there were hundreds of examples), so I stripped it right down to a simple search for text in point size 17.279. Still it finds nothing. I've toggled each of the 7 option boxes above the find field too. What am I overlooking?

[Willi Adelberger]

InDesign calculates internal more exact, maybe, what you see is not 17,279 but 17,2789 or 17,2792. Therefore it is not a good idea to find text with such odd numbers. Do you work with Paragraph Styles, try to find them.

[Spenno]

Thank you, Willi. I think you are right.

Re: paragraph styles, I have always advocated them, but unfortunately at the last three jobs I've worked, they haven't even heard of them, or disliked them. On this document for example, I put them in the last issue - then the next designer took them all out the next time. Hmm.

[Willi Adelberger]

What is the reason to dislike them?

[aniri5j9ox8tw2ln]

Leider kann InDesign keine Schriftgrößen mit zwei- oder dreistelligen Kommatas suchen und finden. Also nur Größen wie z.B. 17.5 oder 18 genau...

[Laubender]

Hallo aniri5j9ox8tw2ln,

ich muss da widersprechen. InDesign kann das sehr wohl.

Nur die exakten Werte zeigen kann es nicht, wenn man die mal vollständig reingetippt hat.

Siehe meine Antwort mit den Beispiel.Screenshots und dem Script-Code.

Aber Spennos Problem kann noch andere Dimensionen haben.

Dazu später mehr.

Gruß,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Laubender]

"point size 17.279, in the font Humanist 721 Extra Black. That found nothing (even though there were hundreds of examples), so I stripped it right down to a simple search for text in point size 17.279. Still it finds nothing."

Hi Spenno,

could be that InDesign is not showing the super-exact values of the point size of that text.

Do get the exact values when selecting the text frame, run this ExtendScript (JavaScript) code that would alert the exact value:

alert( app.selection[0].texts[0].characters[0].pointSize );

You may be able to type in that exact value to the input field of your Text Find field.

Made a sample file where this happens. InDesign is not showing the exact point size, because the text frame was scaled. The point size I see is 13.268 Pt. Text Find will not find text with that value. Why? The exact point size is 13.26804 as my little script is revealing:

If I type in the exact point size to the Find field, InDesign will find the text:

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Laubender]

Well, what Find/Change is not able to do:

Find all text that is in a range between 17.798 and 17.799 points for example.

That would be perhaps necessary to find all relevant texts in this example.

Imagine that the text frames are scaled just a bit differently.

Then a super-exact value of the point size will not help much.

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )