Grep Style to eliminate second decimal place.

[Brandon32002375r2v2]

I was given an excel sheet to format, and now the client has asked me to eliminate the second decimal number (ex change 10.70% -> 10.7%) I wanted to know if someone knew how to specifically target that second number via grep styles or Find/replace. Thanks is advanced, this would help immensely.

[Scott Falkner · Accepted solution]

You cannot use GREP Styles to remove content. For that you must use GREP in Find/Change.

Find: \.(\d)\d%

Change: .$1%

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

You cannot use GREP Styles to remove content.

By @Scott Falkner

You can't "remove" - but you can "hide"...

[Scott Falkner]

You can't "remove" - but you can "hide"...

By @Robert at ID-Tasker

True. You could use the Find expression in a GREP Style and apply a character style that uses a very small point size plus a very small scale percentage, which would effectively make the characters disappear. 0.1 point, with 1% horizontal scale and no fill colour would do the trick.

[Brandon32002375r2v2]

Thanks Scott! That was perfect! (and stopped me from manually deleting 300 zeros)

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Brandon32002375r2v2 

Looks like you ALWAYS have "0%"? Why not replace "0%" with "%"?

Or go with @Scott Falkner's much more universal approach.

[Scott Falkner]

My method will only remove the final digit before the %, it will not round. Rounding would require a more complicated expression at best and more likely is not possible. I mean, you could probably write an expression smart enough to round 12.87% up to 12.9% but rounding 19.97% up to 20.0% seems non-doable.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Scott Falkner 

Something like this?

"19.97% up to 20.0%" - only scripting or few separate GREPs - depends on how much you want to round up - only 19.xx -> 20.00 or 15.xx-19.xx -> 20.00

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

@Scott Falkner 

Or rather this?

[Scott Falkner]

It would have to round every possibility. X.0(5-9) to X.1, X.1(5-9) to X.2, X.2(5-9) to X.3, X.3(5-9) to X.4, etc. Then repeat for every possibiliy of X.9(5-9) to X+1.0.

Now add for every X9.0(5-9) to [X=1]0.0 (e.g. 29.96 rounds to 30.0). Even if you did plug in all those GREP expressions I bet the document would run like molasses in January.

[Robert at ID-Tasker]

It would have to round every possibility. X.0(5-9) to X.1, X.1(5-9) to X.2, X.2(5-9) to X.3, X.3(5-9) to X.4, etc. Then repeat for every possibiliy of X.9(5-9) to X+1.0.

Now add for every X9.0(5-9) to [X=1]0.0 (e.g. 29.96 rounds to 30.0). Even if you did plug in all those GREP expressions I bet the document would run like molasses in January.

By @Scott Falkner

If you want to round up to whole numbers - then yes, it's pointless.

[Brandon32002375r2v2]

In hindsight you're right. Though I have a feeling that future data sheets aren't going to be as clean, so it's good to know it's possible 🙂 Thanks for the solution though! 

[Eugene Tyson]

If it's just every similar thing like 10.70% -> 10.7%

where the 0 is removed 

Find

\.\d\K0(?=%)

Change to

<leave blank>