Find / Change dialog

Work with the find and change dialog in FrameMaker.

To open the Find/Change dialog, choose Edit > Find/Change.

Figure 1. The Find/Change dialog

Find

Select the type of FrameMaker item to search. You can search for text and other Structured authoring.

Note: Whatever text that you search for gets stored in the Find drop-down list. The search history is maintained across FrameMaker sessions.

Simple Search

Searches as per the text entered in the Find field.

Wildcards

Searches based on the wildcard rules defined in the Find field:

Wildcard	Description	Sample
*	Star. Any number of characters	*orm searches for: form or inform
|	Pipe. Spaces or punctuation
.	Dot. Any one character	fo.m searches for form or foam
^	Caret. Start of a line
$	End of line
[ab]	Any one of the bracketed characters	f[ao]rm searches for farm or form
[^ab]	Any character except the bracketed characters	f[^ao]rm searches for f followed by any character except the a and o followed by rm
[a-f]	Any character in the specified range	f[b-e]rm searches for farm or form but not, for example, ferm

Note: When performing a wildcard find, use the backslash character when finding a character that has special meaning to wildcards. For example, \* searches precisely for * (the star character).

Regular Expressions

Searches based on the regular expression defined in the Find field.

Regular expression	Description	Sample
*	Star. Zero or more instances	*orm searches for: form or inform, or frm
.	Dot. Any one character	fo.m searches for form or foam
+	Plus. One Any one character	fo.m searches for form or foam
?	Restrict the search to the next specified character	fo.+?m searches for fo followed by one or more characters (any) followed by m
\d	A digit	\d+ Searches for a number with one or more digits
{n}	Specific number of instances	so{1}n searches for son but not soon
{n,m}	Range of instances	so{1-2}n searches for son and soon but not sooon
{n,}	Range n to m within braces.	so{1-2}n searches for son and soon but not sooon
^	Caret. Start of a line
$	End of line
[ab]	Any one of the bracketed characters	f[ao]rm searches for farm or form
[^ab]	Any character except the bracketed characters	f[^ao]rm searches for f followed by any character except the a and o followed by rm
[a-f]	Any character in the specified range	f[b-e]rm searches for farm or form but not, for example, ferm

Note: When performing a regular expression find, use the backslash character when finding a character that has special meaning to regular expressions. For example, \* searches precisely for * (the star character).

Consider Case

Case-sensitive search

Whole word

Search for a whole word. For example, the search for the whole word so, finds so but not soon.

Find Backward

By default, the Find functionality searches from the start to the end of a document or book. Choose this option to search backwards.

Change

Select the item type to change the found item.

Regular expression change includes a capture group functionality. For example, to find the dates in a document and change the format from dd-mm-yyyy to mm-dd-yyyy, use the following regular expression:

(\d{2})-(\d{2})-(\d{4})

The round brackets on the date, month, and year parts of the regular expression are capture groups. Each capture group is captured within the regular expression variables $1, $2, $3 etc.

To swap the month group with the date group:

$2-$1-$3

Note: If you choose Change or Change & Find when no text is selected in the document, FrameMaker inserts or applies the replacement item at the insertion point.

Clone Case

Ensure that the changed item follows the same casing as the found item. For example, find so and change to soon with Clone Case selected change so to soon and So to Soon.

Look in

Choose to find for items in a book, map, document, or current selection.