Metacharacters for searching – Adobe InCopy CC 2015 User Manual

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Last updated 6/13/2015

Metacharacters for searching

Metacharacters represent a character or symbol in InDesign. Metacharacters in the Text section of the Find/Change
dialog box begin with a caret (^); metacharacters in the GREP section begin with a tilde (~) or backslash (\). You can
type metacharacters in the Text tab or GREP tab of the Find/Change dialog box.

Save time fixing punctuation errors by saving search strings as queries.

Single-line on

(?s)

(?s)c.a

The searches for any character ( . )
between the letters c and a. The
(?s) expression matches any
character, even if it falls on the
next line.

(.) matches anything other than a
paragraph return. (?s)(.) matches
anything, including paragraph
returns.

abc abc abc abc

abc abcabc abc

Single-line off

(?-s)c.a

abc abc abc abc

abc abc abc abc

Repeat number of times

{ }

b{3} matches exactly 3 times

b(3,} matches at least 3 times

b{3,}? matches at least 3 times
(shortest match)

b{2,3} matches at least 2 times
and not more than 3

b{2,3}? matches at least 2 times
and not more than 3 (shortest
match)

abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

Character:

Text tab metacharacter:

GREP tab metacharacter:

Tab Character

^t

\t

End of Paragraph

^p

\r

Forced Line Break

^n

\n

Any Page Number

^#

~#

Current Page Number

^N

~N

Next Page Number

^X

~X

Previous Page Number

^V

~V

* Any Variable

^v

~v

Section Marker

^x

~x

* Anchored Object Marker

^a

~a

* Footnote Reference Marker

^F

~F

* Index Marker

^I

~I

Expression

Search string

Sample text

Matches (in bold)

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