List of Regular Expressions

Any character

Represents the given character unless otherwise specified.

.

Represents any single character except for a line break or paragraph break. For example, the search term "sh.rt" returns both "shirt" and "short".

^

Only finds the search term if the term is at the beginning of a paragraph. Special objects such as empty fields or character-anchored frames, at the beginning of a paragraph are ignored. Example: "^Peter".

$

Only finds the search term if the term appears at the end of a paragraph. Special objects such as empty fields or character-anchored frames at the end of a paragraph are ignored. Example: "Peter$".

$ on its own matches the end of a paragraph. This way it is possible to search and replace paragraph breaks.

*

Finds zero or more of the characters in front of the "*". For example, "Ab*c" finds "Ac", "Abc", "Abbc", "Abbbc", and so on.

+

Finds one or more of the characters in front of the "+". For example, "AX.+4" finds "AXx4", but not "AX4".

The longest possible string that matches this search pattern in a paragraph is always found. If the paragraph contains the string "AX 4 AX4", the entire passage is highlighted.

?

Finds zero or one of the characters in front of the "?". For example, "Texts?" finds "Text" and "Texts" and "x(ab|c)?y" finds "xy", "xaby", or "xcy".

\

Search interprets the special character that follows the "\" as a normal character and not as a regular expression (except for the combinations \n, \t, \>, and \<). For example, "tree\." finds "tree.", not "treed" or "trees".

\n

Represents a line break that was inserted with the Shift+Enter key combination. To change a line break into a paragraph break, enter \n in the Find and Replace boxes, and then perform a search and replace.

\n in the Find text box stands for a line break that was inserted with the Shift+Enter key combination.

\n in the Replace text box stands for a paragraph break that can be entered with the Enter or Return key.

\t

Represents a tab. You can also use this expression in the Replace box.

\b

Match a word boundary. For example, "\bbook" finds "bookmark" but not "checkbook" whereas "book\b" finds "checkbook" but not "bookmark". The discrete word "book" is found by both search terms.

^$

Finds an empty paragraph.

^.

Finds the first character of a paragraph.

& or $0

Adds the string that was found by the search criteria in the Find box to the term in the Replace box when you make a replacement.

For example, if you enter "window" in the Find box and "&frame" in the Replace box, the word "window" is replaced with "windowframe".

You can also enter an "&" in the Replace box to modify the Attributes or the Format of the string found by the search criteria.

[abc123]

Represents one of the characters that are between the brackets.

[a-e]

Represents any of the characters that are between a and e, including both start and end characters.

The characters are ordered by their code numbers.

[a-eh-x]

Represents any of the characters that are between a-e and h-x.

[^a-s]

Represents everything that is not between a and s.

\uXXXX

\UXXXXXXXX

Represents a character based on its four-digit hexadecimal Unicode code (XXXX).

For obscure characters there is a separate variant with capital U and eight hexadecimal digits (XXXXXXXX).

For certain symbol fonts the code for special characters may depend on the used font. You can view the codes by choosing Insert - Special Character.

|

Finds the terms that occur before the "|" and also finds the terms that occur after the "|". For example, "this|that" finds "this" and "that".

{2}

Defines the number of times that the character in front of the opening bracket occurs. For example, "tre{2}" finds and selects "tree".

{1,2}

Defines the minimum and maximum number of times that the character in front of the opening bracket can occur. For example, "tre{1,2}" finds and selects "tre" and "tree".

{1,}

Defines the minimum number of times that the character in front of the opening bracket can occur. For example, "tre{2,}" finds "tree", "treee", and "treeeee".

( )

In the Find box:

Defines the characters inside the parentheses as a reference. You can then refer to the first reference in the current expression with "\1", to the second reference with "\2", and so on.

For example, if your text contains the number 13487889 and you search using the regular expression (8)7\1\1, "8788" is found.

You can also use () to group terms, for example, "a(bc)?d" finds "ad" or "abcd".

In the Replace box:

Use $ (dollar) instead of \ (backslash) to replace references. Use $0 to replace the whole found string.

[:alpha:]

Represents an alphabetic character. Use [:alpha:]+ to find one of them.

[:digit:]

Represents a decimal digit. Use [:digit:]+ to find one of them.

[:alnum:]

Represents an alphanumeric character ([:alpha:] and [:digit:]).

[:space:]

Represents a space character (but not other whitespace characters).

[:print:]

Represents a printable character.

[:cntrl:]

Represents a nonprinting character.

[:lower:]

Represents a lowercase character if Match case is selected in Options.

[:upper:]

Represents an uppercase character if Match case is selected in Options.