How to replace all using grep?

[AK09M]

Hi.

I have a space before and after every footnote number in the text and I want to remove them, I used

Find: (~F) 

Change to: $1

When I do it one by one it works perfectly, but when I use change all it doesn't work it turns them into squares.

What am I doing wrong here?

[Manan Joshi]

Can you share a sample document that exibhits this behaviour.

-Manan

[AK09M]

Here's a sample.

[m1b · Accepted solution]

Hi @AK09M, try this:

((?<=~F) | (?=~F))

This searches for a space with a footnote number before it OR a space with a footnote number after it.

- Mark

[Manan Joshi]

Hi @AK09M and @m1b,

The problem is not searching but replace and it seems we can't replace a footnote marker with itself using change all, it replaces it with something like <?>. It happens on every document. So I suggest to do this in two steps.

Find What
\x20(?=~F)

Change To:- Leave it empty

Second step

Find What
(?<=~F)\x20

Change To: Again leave it empty

-Manan

[m1b]

Hi @Manan Joshi, I think my suggestion works okay—it just targets the spaces, which you can just replace with nothing, so it avoids attempting to replace footnote numbers.

- Mark

[Manan Joshi]

Thanks for adding this @m1b. I was so engrossed in finding why the replace all is not working that I forgot carefully to look at the grep you mentioned. I just complicated your statement by breaking into two steps. The key here was not replacing the footnote or to say replace by nothing, since you did not emphasize on it, I thought that maybe there is something more to be looked into.

-Manan

[Laubender]

Hi Mark and Manan,

to make it more clear that there is a space in the GREP expression:

use the Unicode notation.

((?<=~F)\x{0020}|x{0020}(?=~F))

Best,

Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Manan Joshi]

Hi @Laubender,

Thanks for the suggestion. I had used it. I dissected @m1b's expression into two and you combined mine and his into one 🙂

-Manan

[m1b]

Good idea!