Comments on: How to Find Anything in Parentheses Using Word’s Search

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:46:31 +0000

Hey, thanks….I was about to write a simple Java program to accomplish the task before finding your advice.

By: Mikko

Mikko — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:35:08 +0000

You should probably write a macro to do the replacing and searching. But I would rather use some other software instead of Word, for example, LyX or Emacs

By: sefcug

sefcug — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:26:54 +0000

I like the way you think Dustin.

I have used similar methods, as I use different versions of MS Word, OpenOffice.org Writer, and older word processing software that can utilize “find and replace” functions, but use different expressions.

Substituting a character or group of characters that do not otherwise appear in the document and then deleting them is much easier, at least for me, than figuring out what expression to use with what software.

I also use “Find next” and “Replace” rather than “Replace all”, so that I know exactly what is being replaced.

By: Lisa Hendrix

Lisa Hendrix — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:38:16 +0000

Adriano’s way confused me, though I suppose it would work. Yours, on the other, Dustin, made perfect sense. Nice fix.

By: Adriano

Adriano — Tue, 19 May 2009 21:57:05 +0000

Hi Dustin,

Depending on what version of Word you’re using, you could do this another (simpler) way. Since Word is recognizing the open brackets as part of its search expression, you need to type them in with a backslash: \(.

To find parentheticals, try using this expression:
\([^\)]*\)

I don’t have Word installed right now, but that should work. If not, try surrounding it with square brackets.

Later,
Adriano