My file contains file path and document name info from our work folder and subfolders.



Using search and replace how would I delete the file path info, that is, the "K:\" and everything else up to and including the last "\" in each paragraph (leaving only the file name info).

Is there a way to do this?

Carol

Hi Carol,

A simple Find/Replace should be able to handle that - simply input the complete path as the Find expression and leave the Replace expression empty.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Macropod
That would work for half of the file path, our directory structure contains many folders and subfolders. I have several pages to clean up on a monthly basis -- was just thinking there would be a way to find and delete from the start of the line to the last backward slash in the line. Perhaps not.
Thanks anyway.
Carol

Given that the folder paths are different, you could try a wildcard Find/Replace, where:
Find = (*)([A-Za-z0-9 ._\-\(\)\[\]\{\}]{1,}^13)
Replace = \2

There may be some other valid filename characters that the Find expression doesn't cover, but you can add them easily enough.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Macropod
Thank you for your help. This search and replace worked on some lines and not others (maybe because my file names contained hyphens, don't know).
But anyway I should have requested that this thread be closed because I found a solution in the Excel forum in an existing post titled word up to last "\"
Carol

Hi Carol,

The Find/Replace expression caters for hyphens, so it's probably some other character that I hadn't catered for.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Okay, I see. turns out there were lots of them: open & close parenthesis, apostrophy, ampersand. Probably better to use the Excel solution. Since I have no control over what folks are naming the files.

Parentheses, braces & square brackets are all catered for, but ampersands were not. As I said in the post, you could easily add additional characters to the Find expression if you need them (in this case \&)

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

Alright I added a few more, the plus sign and comma. I will keep this in my personal folder for future use. It will be easier than copying and pasting to Excel. Thank you.

If you're going to be doing a lot of this (and, from what you've posted, it seems likely), record the Find/Replace as a macro, which you can then call via Alt-F8 or even via a keyboard shortcut. It'll save a lot of time and be less error-prone than trying to replicate it each time.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

That's a good idea, will do.