Hi

I have no idea where to start with this one (can clear all text within parenthesis no problem but i specifically need to delete as follows)

I am looking to delete all text with the following criteria when in parenthesis

some start with

(formerly )

and some are

(formerly John Wilson)

with John Wilson being totally random could be any combination up to 25 characters

End result - all deleted including parenthesis


Any help greatly appreciated

Thanks Steve


The following works for (formerly ) as above but needing to catch (formerly John Wilson) << John Wilson could be anything random

Sub replacetext()
Dim test
test = "(formerly )"

Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = test
.Replacement.Text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

Find and replace dialog
Find: \(formerly[a-zA-Z ]{1,25}\)
Replace with: leave it empty
Tick the Use wildcards checkbox
Replace All

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Thanks Guessed

Works a treat , thanks a million fellow Aussie (i'm in Brisbane)

I just found one anomaly, names with an apostrophe for Example D'arcy or similar ?


P.S
Love the Avatar, Gary Larson The Far Side i was a huge fan back in the day (he retired in 1995!)

NoLockdownsLOL - at least it wasn't a dig at State of Origin last night.

You can try adding the apostrophe into the wildcard search box
Find: \(formerly[a-zA-Z' ]{1,25}\)

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

well SOO we still have our tails between our legs from the previous smashings lol

re the apostrophe - tried that unsuccessfully , tried some variants w/out luck also

Non-wildcard find and replaces don't care about the variants of apostrophes but Wildcard searches do. A dumb quote is only one of the apostrophe types - we also have an opening smart quote, closing smart quote and an official apostrophe. See Replacing Some Smart Quotes (Microsoft Word) for more detail.

You will need to find out what particular apostrophe variant is in play here and enter that by holding the Alt key down and typing 0145 or 0146 or 0147 or 0148. You could cover all the bases by adding all of them.

__________________
Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia

Thanks Andrew, good call, will test all the variants .............


Cheers


EDIT

You could cover all the bases by adding all of them.


Did this and worked - boom

Legend, thanks for your help

Go the lions!