Grep Style / Find Change

[Guest]

I am doing a catalog and and I have multiple variable 

I need your GREP expertise

Ii have a document with variable numbers thatI need the format changes:

"From 3 years to 6 years"

change "3 - 6" (no quotes)

From 3 years to 6 years

3 - 6

but the "numbers" are different though out the cataloge

Is there a way to say FIND From "any number" years to "any number" years

and change to "any number" - "any number" ?

Any find and change advice would be appreciated!

[Mike Witherell]

In the Find/Change GREP field:

\d is any digit.

(\d) could be recalled in the replace field as $0, or $1, or $2

Make sure you set an EN dash; not a hyphen; between ranges of numbers.

And so: 

Find what: (\d) years to (\d)

Change to: $1~=$2

Change All

[Peter Spier]

Mikes answer assumes an ordinary typed space.

I would perhaps use (\d+)\syears\sto\s(\d+) which will find other types of spaces as well.

I also prefer to change to $1~<~=~<$2 which adds a thin space on either side of the en-dash

[Peter Spier]

Also forgot to mention that the use of \d+ picks up numbers that are more than one digit, in case you have those, too.

[Guest]

now it looks like this

Ages From 0 - 4  years 

it needs to be :

Ages From 0 - 4  years? 

Getting there! 

[Peter Spier]

Okay, instead of just (\d+)\syears\sto\s(\d+) use [Ff]rom\s(\d+)\syears\sto\s(\d+) which will pick up the "from" and eliminate it with the following space. The [Ff] class will pick it up whether or not it is capitalized.

[Guest]

i still need to remove the "years at the end "

Ages 3–6 years ?

[Peter Spier · Accepted solution]

Sorry, missed that.

[Ff]rom\s(\d+)\syears\sto\s(\d+)\syears