Issues with GREP Selecting Long Text Blocks in InDesign

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
October 31, 2024
2 replies
1370 views

Is there a limit on how long the found GREP result can be??

For shorter blocks of text - it will select all lines:

If I start removing some words from the first block - it will select bigger part - more paragraph(s)??

Also, what should be the GREP query to find everything in between:

REFERENCES

...

CHAPTER

but excluding those words - so the found result will be like on the 2nd screenshot.

Because, even something like this doesn't work??

Nor this:

Bug

P

Peter Kahrel

Adobe Expert

To match everything between those two words, do this:

(?s)REFERENCES\r\K.+(?=CHAPTER)

The default is that the dot doesn't match paragraph breaks. That can be overruled by (?s).

As for the amount of text that can be matched, there was a restriction a few versions ago of 32K characters. What is the limit in your tests?

Robert at ID-TaskerAuthor

Brainiac

Thanks @Peter Kahrel.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work all the time...

For some reason, there is one place where more is selected than should be?

And I've just fond something else - it completely skips this and few other:

Also, there can be ":" after "REFERENCES" - of course I don't count those as skipped.

There are also Tables in between, so it looks like I'll have to implement it - finding & formatting block of text - differently in my IDT - which isn't a big deal, but I was hoping blocks can be found using GREP.

I can always do two searches:

and then process results by going through the list, selecting Paragraph after checked line and up to next visible and unchecked line - and ItemByRange().

Or make it even more universal - I'll select from-to and then unselect 1st and last Paragraphs of the selection.