Puzzled by wildcard search

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul
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Paul

I'm using Word 2003 on Windows XP, trying to search for strings like:

AB-1s
AB-1,2's
AB-2,3a's

I tried the following:

AB-[! ]{1,10}s
AB-?{1,10}s>

Neither seem to work, though according to my reading of the Help, it
should. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about the Help, or
does Wildcards just not work as described in the Help?
 
Paul said:
I'm using Word 2003 on Windows XP, trying to search for strings like:

AB-1s
AB-1,2's
AB-2,3a's

I tried the following:

AB-[! ]{1,10}s
AB-?{1,10}s>

Neither seem to work, though according to my reading of the Help, it
should. Is there something I'm misunderstanding about the Help, or
does Wildcards just not work as described in the Help?
Click to expand...

The problem appears to be the separate letter s at the end of the
expression. Instead, the following seems to do the job:

AB-[! ^13]{1,10}

The ^13 included with the space in the [! ^13] means that the matched text
can't include a paragraph mark.

This is a wrinkle I hadn't seen before. You'll find an expanded discussion
of the wildcard search rules at
http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.
 
Paul said:
I'm using Word 2003 on Windows XP, trying to search for strings like:
Click to expand...
  AB-1s
  AB-1,2's
  AB-2,3a's
Click to expand...
I tried the following:
Click to expand...
  AB-[! ]{1,10}s
  AB-?{1,10}s>
Click to expand...
Neither seem to work, though according to my reading of the Help, it
should.  Is there something I'm misunderstanding about the Help, or
does Wildcards just not work as described in the Help?
Click to expand...

The problem appears to be the separate letter s at the end of the
expression. Instead, the following seems to do the job:

AB-[! ^13]{1,10}

The ^13 included with the space in the [! ^13] means that the matched text
can't include a paragraph mark.

This is a wrinkle I hadn't seen before. You'll find an expanded discussion
of the wildcard search rules athttp://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, not having the "s" diminishes the usefulness of the
wildcard search in particular instance. Thanks for the link, though,
it was very informative.
 
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