I'm trying to use wildcards in Find & Replace to reverse the order of names in a list from surname, first name e.g.

Blogs Fred --> Fred Blogs
Smith John --> John Smith
Doe John
Etc SoForth

I thought that I needed to select ‘Use wildcards’ & type \1 \2 in the ‘Find what’ field & \2 \1 in the ‘Replace with’ field, but when I do this & click ‘Replace All’ I get an error message:

“The Replace with group text contains a number which is out of range”

What's going on here? What am I doing wrong?

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Edit:


OK, I just tried (<*>) (<*>) in 'find what' & \2 \1 in 'replace with' & it works as long as I select the list of names first, otherwise it applies to everything in the document & messes up the text.

I'm sure that I've done this in the past & it’s worked without me having to select text first, but I can’t remember how..............any suggestions?

Also, I still don't understand why the first way didn't work & what the error message actually means, so any clarification still welcomed!


TIA

The error is because you were trying to define groups 1 and 2 in the replace with field that were never defined in the find what field.

If each name in your list of names constitutes a single paragraph then you should have to select the text.


Find: (<*>)( )(<*>)(^13)
Replace With \3\2\1\4

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Greg Maxey
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Thanks for that, but could you clarify some things in your answer? Actually, quite a lot of it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by gmaxey The error is because you were trying to define groups 1 and 2 in the replace with field that were never defined in the find what field.

Defining what I want to find with (<*>) (<*>)

1. My understanding is that <*> means any single word (compared with e.g. <h*t> which would find hot, hat, hit, etc) so <*> <*> would mean any two adjacent words..........am I right so far?
2. What exactly do the round brackets ( ) do to <*>?

Quote:

If each name in your list of names constitutes a single paragraph then you should have to select the text. Find: (<*>)( )(<*>)(^13)

1. Why the ( ) between (<*>) & (<*>)? When I use (<*>) (<*>) in 'find what' & \2 \1 in 'replace with' it works on the selected text
2. Why the (^13)? I know it means 'carriage return' i.e. new paragraph, but it doesn't seem to be needed when i use (<*>) (<*>) & \2 \1
3. If I have to select the text to change then surely the applet’s not actually finding anything – I've already told it where to look, no? That might seem like I'm splitting hairs but if, for example, I had a 50 page doc with multiple instances of names I wanted to reverse (either as lists or within sentences), would I have to manually go through & select each before running find/replace?

Quote:

Replace With \3\2\1\4

1. Why are the numbers in that order?
2. Why no spaces between each \number pair?

I know I'm asking a lot of questions there, so any that you feel like answering would be much appreciated. Alternatively, could you point me towards any good tutorials/resources on the topic?

1. Your understanding is correct.
2. The parens define the groups. Group 1 is the first <*>, group 2 is the space separating the words, group 3 it the second <*>, group 4 is the end of paragraph mark.

This: If each name in your list of names constitutes a single paragraph then you should have to select the text.

should have been: If each name in your list of names constitutes a single paragraph then you should "NOT" have to select the text.

1A. By adding the (^13) you will only process two word paragraphs (or only your list and not the rest of the text).

Word 1 Space 2 Word 3 ParagraphMark 4 is rearranged:
3214

http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm

__________________
Greg Maxey
Please visit my web site at http://www.gregmaxey.com/