Need GREP To Identify Multiple Patterns

[kmc27]

Hi

I am attempting to format text by identifying it with GREP patterns, then applying styles via InDesign's paragraph and character styles. I was able to get half of what I wanted using Nested Styles, but that solution doesn't seem to fit most of the cases in the files with which I am working. Here are the patterns I am trying to identify in a single GREP statement::

00% OFF

Over 00% OFF

$00.00

00.00

One of the above four patterns will always appear at the beginning of the paragraph. I want the GREP statement to identify the text that matches any or all of those patterns, so that I can apply the text styles. I was able get partially there by doing the first two "% OFF" scenarios using nested styles, then trying to do the "$00.00" and "00.00" with a GREP statement. I could never get the grep statement to completely work. Either it would ignore the "$" sign, or the first two digits before the decimal place. And I'm not even sure mixing Nested Styles and GREP is a wise way to go. Can someone assist me in getting a GREP statement that will identify any of these potential combinations. The document I am working on has other patterns that differ from the four above, but if I can get the above four, that will be about 80% off the project, and will minimize a lot of hand editing to get the font treatments correct.

Thanks in advance for any help you can lend on this.

[Jump_Over]

Hi,

Are you looking for scripting solution or UI?

"$" and "." both are wildcards in GREP,so you have to escape them (in UI: "\$" and "\.") to make it working.

Jarek

[Kai Rübsamen · Accepted solution]

Hi,

try the following:

(Over )?\d+% OFF|\x24?\d+\.\d+

or if you want to find those combinations only at the beginning of a paragph:

^((Over )?\d+% OFF|\x24?\d+\.\d+)

– Kai

[kmc27]

Thank you so much for your help with this. I have another what seems to be an easy string to match that either partially works or fails altogether.

I have a phrase that follows the first expression - the phrase is "with your 25% savings pass!". There are variations of the phrase, but it always begins with the word "with", includes a % sign, and ends with a paragraph return. I read Peter Kahrel's "Automating InDesign with Regular Expressions"  and came up with this expression: with [A-Za-z0-9%]\r   That doesn't work at all. If i remove the end of paragraph, \r, then the expression partially works, identifying "with and the "y" in "your" but nothing else.  Am I messing a repeat 1 or more times character?

[kmc27]

OK, I think I've got it. Is the expression below the best way to match the phrase "with your 25% savings pass!". Again, there are variations of the phrase, but it always begins with the word "with", includes a % sign, and ends with a paragraph return.

with .*\r

[Kai Rübsamen]

Am I messing a repeat 1 or more times character?

Yes. Everything in [] counts as one character. Instead of [A-Za-z0-9%]\r you coud also write [\w%]\r . This will find only the last character before the return. But this will not find spaces or dashes!

To find more you could use 'with .*\r' as you mentioned. But this will also find "with all my friends." followed by a return. So this is maybe not the best way.

If you know, that you have digits, followed by a space or not and a percentage character in your text, include it in your expression!

So this 'with.+\d+\s?%.+\r' will find "with your 25% savings pass!" followed by a return, but not "with all my 25 friends"

[kmc27]

Thanks again. This can get convoluted, so I appreciate the advice. Now I am seeing instances where the line "with your 25% savings pass!" has to be broken via a soft return (shift + return key) When broken, the second line no longer starts with the word "with", so the grep style is not applied to the new second line. Is there a way to tell a grep style to carry on through a soft return?

[Kai Rübsamen]

Sure. Please make a screenshot from this part. It is then easier for me to give you the correct grep.

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Hi,

Interesting grep:  ^with(\n?.)+\d+%(\n?.)+$

[kmc27]

Sample InDesign CS4 document is here

http://www.icestorm.net/theland/misc/grep_test.indd

Here is a screen shot of what happens when I do a hard or soft return

[Kai Rübsamen]

Thanks for your samples. First of all, live isn’t always easy 😉

Apply some colors to your character styles and you will see, that your first style isn’t honored (OFF > off)

Second: It is a big difference for grepstyles, if you enter a softreturn in the same paragraph or you enter a hard return (new paragraph).

Since the scope of grepstyles is paragraph based, your second para did not know the first one.

So in your special example you could use (with|coupon)[^\r]+

That means, search for: with or coupon, followed by anything that is not a hard return, multiple times.

But if you have other phrases, this may not work or must be extended.

[kmc27]

Thanks everyone who helped me with the above question. I am getting more variance in the text that when I initially wrote. Here is a typical range of what would need to match with an expressions. Is this too free-form for a grep expression? Any ideas on this would be appreciated.

00% OFF

Over 00% OFF

$00.00

00.00

Up to 00% off

$00 off

000.00

$00-$00