How do i find and replace words in parenthesis? in Word General Questions    |   |  Help   Search For:     In:   Office   Word     Word General Questions     Word New Users     Word Application Errors     Word Drawing and Graphics     Word Mailmerge and Fax     Word Page Layout     Word Programming     Word Tables              Bob in Arizona 8/31/2006 12:58 PM PST   Question   I play guitar and have several files with the chord names in parenthesis. Ex. A (B)child arrived just the (D)other day... Using find and replace with special characters, I need to find all letters and numbers enclosed in parenthesis (including the parenthesis characters) and change the font color to red in order to highlight the chords. Does anyone know the special character string that will find all occurrances of text within parenthesis (including the Parenthesis Marks) and replace with an alternate text color?     Was this post helpful to you?         Reply |   Top           Phil Rabichow 8/31/2006 1:53 PM PST   Answer   Hi Bob: 1. Press Ctrl+H to bring up Find/Replace dialog box. 2. In the find box, type \(*\) 3. click in the replace box, go to Format/Font & change it to red. Leave the replace box blank. Under it, it will say Format: Font color: Red 4. Click "Use wildcards" 5. Click Replace all. The "\" tells Word to treat an operator (like parenthses) as just a character. Therefore, \( finds the opening paren, the "*" says to find everything after that up to \), which is the closing paren. -- Hope this helps. Phil To assist in maintaining the thread for others who are interested, please post any follow-up question or reply in the newsgroup and not directly to me:-) Bob in Arizona wrote: > I play guitar and have several files with the chord names in parenthesis. Ex. > A (B)child arrived just the (D)other day... Using find and replace with > special characters, I need to find all letters and numbers enclosed in > parenthesis (including the parenthesis characters) and change the font color > to red in order to highlight the chords. Does anyone know the special > character string that will find all occurrances of text within parenthesis > (including the Parenthesis Marks) and replace with an alternate text color?     Was this post helpful to you?         Reply |   Top           mick [MSFT] 8/31/2006 2:12 PM PST   oh yeah. Phil's way is better than the one I just posted "Phil Rabichow" wrote: > Hi Bob: > 1. Press Ctrl+H to bring up Find/Replace dialog box. > 2. In the find box, type > \(*\) > 3. click in the replace box, go to Format/Font & change it to red. Leave the > replace box blank. Under it, it will say Format: Font color: Red > 4. Click "Use wildcards" > 5. Click Replace all. > > The "\" tells Word to treat an operator (like parenthses) as just a character. > Therefore, \( finds the opening paren, the "*" says to find everything after that > up to \), which is the closing paren. > -- > Hope this helps. > > Phil > To assist in maintaining the thread for others who are interested, please post > any follow-up question or reply in the newsgroup and not directly to me:-) > > Bob in Arizona wrote: > > > I play guitar and have several files with the chord names in parenthesis. Ex. > > A (B)child arrived just the (D)other day... Using find and replace with > > special characters, I need to find all letters and numbers enclosed in > > parenthesis (including the parenthesis characters) and change the font color > > to red in order to highlight the chords. Does anyone know the special > > character string that will find all occurrances of text within parenthesis > > (including the Parenthesis Marks) and replace with an alternate text color? > > > >     Was this post helpful to you?         Reply |   Top           Bob in Arizona 8/31/2006 2:37 PM PST   Exactly what I needed! Thanks "Phil Rabichow" wrote: > Hi Bob: > 1. Press Ctrl+H to bring up Find/Replace dialog box. > 2. In the find box, type > \(*\) > 3. click in the replace box, go to Format/Font & change it to red. Leave the > replace box blank. Under it, it will say Format: Font color: Red > 4. Click "Use wildcards" > 5. Click Replace all. > > The "\" tells Word to treat an operator (like parenthses) as just a character. > Therefore, \( finds the opening paren, the "*" says to find everything after that > up to \), which is the closing paren. > -- > Hope this helps. > > Phil > To assist in maintaining the thread for others who are interested, please post > any follow-up question or reply in the newsgroup and not directly to me:-) > > Bob in Arizona wrote: > > > I play guitar and have several files with the chord names in parenthesis. Ex. > > A (B)child arrived just the (D)other day... Using find and replace with > > special characters, I need to find all letters and numbers enclosed in > > parenthesis (including the parenthesis characters) and change the font color > > to red in order to highlight the chords. Does anyone know the special > > character string that will find all occurrances of text within parenthesis > > (including the Parenthesis Marks) and replace with an alternate text color? > > > >     Was this post helpful to you?         Reply |   Top           Graham Mayor 8/31/2006 10:33 PM PST   Only problem is that this will convert any bracketed text and not merely your chord numbers. Search instead for \([a-zA-Z0-9]{1,}\) Replace with ^& format font red -- <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<> Graham Mayor - Word MVP My web site www.gmayor.com Word MVP web site http://word.mvps.org <>>< ><<> ><<> <>>< ><<> <>>< <>><<> Bob in Arizona wrote: > Exactly what I needed! Thanks > > "Phil Rabichow" wrote: > >> Hi Bob: >> 1. Press Ctrl+H to bring up Find/Replace dialog box. >> 2. In the find box, type >> \(*\) >> 3. click in the replace box, go to Format/Font & change it to red. >> Leave the replace box blank. Under it, it will say Format: Font >> color: Red >> 4. Click "Use wildcards" >> 5. Click Replace all. >> >> The "\" tells Word to treat an operator (like parenthses) as just a >> character. Therefore, \( finds the opening paren, the "*" says to >> find everything after that up to \), which is the closing paren. >> -- >> Hope this helps. >> >> Phil >> To assist in maintaining the thread for others who are interested, >> please post any follow-up question or reply in the newsgroup and not >> directly to me:-) >> >> Bob in Arizona wrote: >> >>> I play guitar and have several files with the chord names in >>> parenthesis. Ex. A (B)child arrived just the (D)other day... Using >>> find and replace with special characters, I need to find all >>> letters and numbers enclosed in parenthesis (including the >>> parenthesis characters) and change the font color to red in order >>> to highlight the chords. Does anyone know the special character >>> string that will find all occurrances of text within parenthesis >>> (including the Parenthesis Marks) and replace with an alternate >>> text color?     Was this post helpful to you?         Reply |   Top           mick [MSFT] 8/31/2006 2:10 PM PST   you can use the Any Character special character in the Find What box (enclosed in parentheses) and the Find What Text special character in the Replace With box. You will need to do more than one search if some of the parentheticals have more than one character. (One search for strings with one character, one for strings with two characters, etc.) Looks like this: Find What box text: (^?) Replace With box text: ^& (this is for the one-character search. for the two-character search, use 2 Any Character characters in Find What) make sense? --Mick "Bob in Arizona" wrote: > I play guitar and have several files with the chord names in parenthesis. Ex. > A (B)child arrived just the (D)other day... Using find and replace with > special characters, I need to find all letters and numbers enclosed in > parenthesis (including the parenthesis characters) and change the font color > to red in order to highlight the chords. Does anyone know the special > character string that will find all occurrances of text within parenthesis > (including the Parenthesis Marks) and replace with an alternate text color?     Was this post helpful to you?         Reply |   Top         Return to Microsoft Communities   Notify me of replies