InDesign

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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.

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

Bullet Character

^8

~8

Caret Character

^^

\^

Backslash Character

\

\\

Copyright Symbol

^2

~2

Ellipsis

^e

~e

Tilde

~

\~

Paragraph Symbol

^7

~7

Registered Trademark Symbol

^r

~r

Section Symbol

^6

~6

Trademark Symbol

^d

~d

Open Parenthesis Character

(

\(

Close Parenthesis Character

)

\)

Open Brace Character

{

\{

Close Brace Character

}

\}

Open Bracket Character

[

\[

Close Bracket Character

]

\]

Em Dash

^_

~_

En Dash

^=

~=

Discretionary Hyphen

^-

~-

Nonbreaking Hyphen

^~

~~

Em Space

^m

~m

En Space

^>

~>

Third Space

^3

~3

Quarter Space

^4

~4

Sixth Space

^%

~%

Flush Space

^f

~f

Hair Space

^|

~|

Nonbreaking Space

^s

~s

Nonbreaking Space (fixed width)

^S

~S

Thin Space

^<

~<

Figure Space

^/

~/

Punctuation Space

^.

~.

Clipboard Contents, Formatted

^c

~c

Clipboard Contents, Unformatted

^C

~C

Any Double Quotation Mark

"

"

Any Single Quotation Mark

'

'

Straight Double Quotation Mark

^"

~"

Double Left Quotation Mark

^{

~{

Double Right Quotation Mark

^}

~}

Straight Single Quotation Mark

^'

~'

Single Left Quotation Mark

^[

~[

Single Right Quotation Mark

^]

~]

Standard carriage return

^b

~b

Column Break

^M

~M

Frame Break

^R

~R

Page Break

^P

~P

Odd Page Break

^L

~L

Even Page Break

^E

~E

Discretionary Line Break

^j

~a

Right Indent Tab

^y

~y

Indent to Here

^i

~i

End Nested Style Here

^h

~h

Nonjoiner

^k

~k

Running header (paragraph style)

^Y

~Y

Running header (character style)

^Z

~Z

Custom text

^u

~u

Last page number

^T

~T

Chapter number

^H

~H

Creation date

^S

~S

Modification date

^o

~o

Output date

^D

~D

File name

^l (lowercase L)

~l (lowercase L)

*Any Digit

^9

\d

*Any Letter

^$

[\l\u]

*Any Character

^?

. (inserts period in Change To)

* White Space (any space or tab)

^w

\s (Inserts space in Change To)

* Any word character

 

\w

* Any uppercase letter

 

\u

* Any lowercase letter

 

\l

* Kanji

^K

\K

* Can be entered in the Find What box only, not the Change To box.