In Word 2016 I have a list of a 11.000 historical military people that I want to turn into a table to be used in a sortable Excel later. It's OCR-d from a pdf of an old book, around 10% non trusted result)

They all look like this (One man per paragraph):



de CHARETTE de LA CONTRIE, Athanase, né Ã* Nantes (Loire-Inférieure), 18 septembre 1832. — Lieutenant-colonel, commandant la Légion des Volontaires de lÂ’Ouest, 7 octobre 1870 ; Général de brigade, 14 janvier 1871. Combat de Brou ; bataille de Loigny. Blessé Ã* Loigny. — Chevalier de la Légion dÂ’honneur, 8 décembre 1870 ; Officier de la Légion d'honneur, 20 juillet 1871.



I have already placed tabs before and after "né Ã*" with a simple S&R.

Now I need a tab AFTER the first date ( right after the first right bracket, always 19th century).
So in the search box I typed ), ^# <(*)> 18^#^#.
and in the Replacebox : ^t^&^T
(Intending a second run with the two-digit days, and to do a correction by switching the first tab and the bracket later)

But it does not work : nothing is found.
It says (Transl. from Dutch):
^# is not a valid part of a searchstring or it's not supported when using wildcards is enabled
I have tried a lot of variants, but no dice



What am I doing wrong?

Leo

You could use a wildcard Find/Replace with:
Find = ([0-9]{4}.)^32
Replace = \1^t
This will put tabs after
18 septembre 1832.
and
14 janvier 1871.

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

But that's RegEx! I am afraid of RegEx. In forums I always hear that there are 42792 versions of RegEx, so I have never tried it. Maybe I should. Is there a RegEx for Dummies somewhere? Best with a descriptions of the differences between the main



I need a tab before AND after the date.
18 septembre 1832 is de date I need, and it's the only date. I cannot have a Tab after 14 Janvier 1871.


Enfin, merci pour votre essay de m'aider!


Leo

It's not RegEx at all. It's a Word wildcard Find/Replace. Although there are some similarities, they are not the same.

For what you want, try a Word wildcard Find/Replace with:
Find = ([!^13]@) ([0-9]{1;2} [jfmasond][a-eéilm-prt-v]{2;8} [0-9]{4}.) (*^13)
Replace = \1^t\2^t\3
This assumes the months will all have valid characters. If not, try:
Find = ([!^13]@) ([0-9]{1;2} [jfmasond][! ]{2;8} [0-9]{4}.) (*^13)
Replace = \1^t\2^t\3

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