We are trying to check for errors in a dictionary and wonder if it's possible to use Find/Change to search for a letter (for example, A) in Arial that is attached to a glyph (wingding) and replace it with A-space-glyph.
A second search would be for a glyph (wingding) attached to a letter in Arial and replace it with the wingding glyph-space-letter. See screenshot with an example for each of these Find/Change functions
If this is possible, please give detailed info and perhaps even a screenshot. . If we can get it to work, we would go through the alphabet (new searches for each letter). I read about InDesign GREP and wonder if this might be the way to do it.
Thanks.
1 Correct answer
GREP sounds complicated and risky for our situation. We have proofread the book 3 times and think the glyph/spacing issue is about 98% correct. We were wondering if there's an easy way to give it a final check.
Not really, with the text formatting you've chosen. The three-step process is not particularly difficult and would cost nothing to try — on a copy of your work file/s, of course.
A potentially simpler approach would be to replace all instances of the glyph with [space][glyph][space],
...
29
Replies
Is the glyph consistent? Or do you need to search for 'any character' in Wingdings, and a letter?
By @James Gifford—NitroPress
It is consistent, the lozenge glyph used in the screenshot.
Then you can use it as a literal in the search string, which makes it easy. Just cut and paste into both search and find fields, as needed.
I take it the other character can be any letter? Always uppercase, or?
By @James Gifford—NitroPress
But then, as @Eugene Tyson discovered - you'll lose formatting - either on "A" or the glyph - depends on the order.
Your diamond glyph has some Unicode value - so you could search for it before or after "A".
If it's only this diamond shape - you could either use Clipboard as a replacement...
... Or you don't really need GREP for this.
Replace your diamond glyph with some unique string - #diamond# - work on it as it has Arial font applied:
#diamond#A -> A #diamond#
then replace this unique string back with diamond glyph styled with an extra CharStyle and Wingding font.
But if you would prefer GREP solution - it would be helpful to know surroundings of the text(s) you want to process - so can you post some screenshots with real texts - with hidden characters visible?
By @Robert at ID-Tasker
We do not necessarily want to use GREP; just read about it for the first time today. We just want to use Find/Replace the one wingding character (Unicode F074).
In short, we want to check over 63,000 entries to be sure there is one space both before the after the lozenge wingding character, the space being preceded or followed by a letter in uppercase.
We could not find a way to have a search include both "text" and a "glyph". If you're able to post a screenshot of how to do this, it would be most helpful. Thanks.
Thanks.
We could not find a way to have a search include both "text" and a "glyph". If you're able to post a screenshot of how to do this, it would be most helpful.
By @lekkerder
Select this diamond shape, copy, go to Find field, paste, add "A" before/after - Search.
Select this diamond shape, copy, go to Find field, paste, add "A" before/after - Search.
By @Robert at ID-Tasker
Our InDesign guy may have tried that, but I'll run it by him. Would be great if that does it! Thanks.
Select this diamond shape, copy, go to Find field, paste, add "A" before/after - Search.
By @Robert at ID-TaskerOur InDesign guy may have tried that, but I'll run it by him. Would be great if that does it! Thanks.
By @lekkerder
Yes, it will work.
InDesign is 100% UNICODE - so you can copy any text and paste it into Find field - special glyphs / characters will be converted though - to \something for Text or ^something for GREP.
Maybe you don't really need Windings:
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/font/arial_unicode_ms/blockview.htm?block=geometric_shapes
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/25c6/index.htm
By @Robert at ID-Tasker
We'll look into this too. Many thanks!
When I do this grep search it works
\<\u\K(?=)|()(\u)
But it changes the font ---
Never noticed it did that before
Thought it only swapped 2 with 1
Odd.
We'd have to ask someone like Peter Kahrel — and even he may not know — but I think the GREP method for storing text fragments is 'destructive' in that it converts the content to standard ASCII. That is, it doesn't store it the way regular cut or copy does.
By @James Gifford—NitroPress
No, not ASCII - it's still full UNICODE - but like I've said earlier - InDesign is treating found result - as a bunch of characters without distinguish which character has which formatting - the whole string is treated as formatted the same way.
We'd have to ask someone like Peter Kahrel — and even he may not know — but I think the GREP method for storing text fragments is 'destructive' in that it converts the content to standard ASCII. That is, it doesn't store it the way regular cut or copy does.
By @James Gifford—NitroPress
GREP sounds complicated and risky for our situation. We have proofread the book 3 times and think the glyph/spacing issue is about 98% correct. We were wondering if there's an easy way to give it a final check.
We'd have to ask someone like Peter Kahrel — and even he may not know — but I think the GREP method for storing text fragments is 'destructive' in that it converts the content to standard ASCII. That is, it doesn't store it the way regular cut or copy does.
By @James Gifford—NitroPressGREP sounds complicated and risky for our situation. We have proofread the book 3 times and think the glyph/spacing issue is about 98% correct. We were wondering if there's an easy way to give it a final check.
By @lekkerder
In that case you shouldn't do Find&Change - just search for the "wrong" combinations and rather fix them manually.
If you work on a PC - you could use free version of my ID-Taker tool - you can then search for each part separately and combine results.
If you can send me an example - INDD file with a one or two pages - I can help you with the process.
In that case you shouldn't do Find&Change - just search for the "wrong" combinations and rather fix them manually.
If you work on a PC - you could use free version of my ID-Taker tool - you can then search for each part separately and combine results.
If you can send me an example - INDD file with a one or two pages - I can help you with the process.
By @Robert at ID-Tasker
Ah, find errors and fix manually rather than automatically with Find/Replace. Sounds wise. If we can't get that to work, I'll send you an INDD file with a sample page. Very kind of you to offer. We will work on the Find/Replace later today (or at the very latest, tomorrow) and I'll post again about the results or send you a sample page.
Many thanks!
A potentially simpler approach would be to replace all instances of the glyph with [space][glyph][space], then replace all double spaces with single ones until no doubles are left.
By @James Gifford—NitroPress
This sounds like a good idea. One of the Find/Replace strings we were planning to do is to search for double spaces and replace with a single space, but we hadn't considered dealing with the glyph that way too. Thanks!
AdChoices