GREP: removing lines of (nothing) after data merge

[Grant H]

Hi guys. GREP (sigh)...
I need to remove the empty lines after datamerge for certain products. The checkbox to delete blank lines will not work in this case. I have tried to get the grep correct but to no avail, please can someone help. In my eg i need the "Black" to move up.

thanks

/G

[Manan Joshi]

Hi Grant,

In Find Grep, use find what as following

^\r

and leave the change to as blank, this should hopefully work if i understood your requirement properly

-Manan

[Grant H]

Hi Manan, no that wont work it still would leave the paragraphs that have a tab for instance.

[katelinhealey]

This. Saved. My. Life. Thank you!

[Grant H · Accepted solution]

okay...   it seems that:

 \s+$

works.

Thanks

[Manan Joshi]

Sorry, I thought you just wanted to remove paragraphs that had nothing. However your grep expression will not work in some cases like

• if the text has something like abc tab tab paragraph your expression will match it which should not be the case as the paragraph does have content abc

I would suggest you to use the following expression

^\s*\r

This will start from the start of the paragraph, make sure either the paragraph is empty or has one or more whitespace characters only and then it is followed by the paragraph end character

-Manan

[Grant H]

Hi Manan, the problem with that is it assumes the paragraph style from the text above the blank lines. also the \s+$ grep doesnt match the eg you mentioned:

as can be seen here after running the \s+$ grep. Even if there is abc tab tab paragraph.

[Manan Joshi]

Hi Grant,

I think there is some gap in what you and i are doing, please see the screengrab of how i am testing. Notice that using your grep expression the paragraphs with Hello and the other second para is also getting selected. With the expression i gave only the blank para is selected and also i could not reproduce the issue with paragraph style being changed.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lu7ly4h6r34owk9/screen%20recording%202020-01-22%20at%206.34.01%20pm.mov?dl...

-Manan

[Grant H]

Hi bud. I watched the vid. and even in your eg only the white space is selected which is perfect. I think a normally written paragraph and using data merge which adds in hidden conditional text may have something to do with it.

thanks

[Laubender]

Hi Grant,

I suggest you'd make a sample text frame available for testing.

Could be even a IDMS file with Dropbox or a similar service.

Thanks,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

[Grant H]

Hi Laubender,

the grep i "stumbled" (cause i suck at it) seems to work perfectly for what I am doing so all good for now.

thank you