InDesign GREP - Efficient text editing (GREP)

Graphics, Adobe

Work in InDesign on books, catalogs, price lists or long documents? This course teaches how to apply GREP alongside paragraph and character styles to automate repetitive formatting, perform advanced find & replace, and clean imported data with practical examples.

Through hands-on exercises you'll learn metacharacters, lookahead/lookbehind and grouping to build precise searches, use object and table styles with GREP, and apply automated fixes to transform imported datasets — bring your own laptop and InDesign.

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The course:

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  • Paragraph and character styles
    1. Definition, uses, examples
  • Object and table styles
    1. Definition, uses, examples
  • GREP basics
    1. What is GREP? Terminology, principles, comparison with simple text search
    2. Where GREP appears in InDesign workflows
  • Metacharacters — GREP building blocks
    1. Core metacharacters and their roles
    2. Constructing search criteria with wildcards, positions, and repetition
    3. Defining selection ranges, shortest matches and partial-string tests
  • Advanced metacharacters
    1. Alternation (OR) and negation (inverse selection)
    2. Capturing subexpressions and their role in replacement and organization
    3. Lookbehind and lookahead expressions for refined searches
  • Styling with GREP
    1. Comparing GREP styling and nested styles
    2. Styling specific words or expressions
    3. Handling inconsistent source text
    4. Applying multiple character styles to the same text with GREP
    5. Practical examples: pricing, numbered lists, numeric sequences
  • Searching and replacing with GREP
    1. How GREP enhances Find/Change functionality
    2. Building robust search queries
    3. Using formatting and styles as search criteria
    4. Using backreferences in search queries
    5. Cleaning up text using GREP
  • Practical project using Find/Change and GREP
    1. Adapting data exported from an English database for Czech typesetting
    2. …
  • Links and online resources for further reading
Assumed knowledge:
Basic familiarity with InDesign and basic use of paragraph and character styles.
Recommended previous course:
Adobe InDesign - Intensive Course (AIND1)
Schedule:
1 day (9:00 AM - 5:00 PM )
Language: