📚 Learn GREP for InDesign

A practical guide to mastering Find/Change patterns. No programming experience required.

🤔 What is GREP?

GREP stands for Global Regular Expression Print. In InDesign, it's a powerful way to find and replace text patterns — not just specific words, but types of text.

Think of it this way:

• Normal Find/Change: Find "cat" → Replace with "dog"
• GREP Find/Change: Find "any word followed by two spaces" → Replace with "that word followed by one space"

Where to Find GREP in InDesign

1. Press Ctrl+F (Windows) or Cmd+F (Mac)
2. Click the GREP tab
3. Enter your pattern in the "Find what" field
4. Enter your replacement in the "Change to" field
5. Click "Find Next" or "Change All"

🎯 Your First Pattern Easy

Let's start simple. The most common text problem: double spaces.

Wait — that's just normal Find/Change! You're right. But what if there are THREE spaces? Or four? Let's use GREP:

🃏 Wildcards & Special Characters Easy

GREP uses special characters to represent types of text:

Pattern	Meaning	Matches
.	Any single character	a, B, 3, @, space
\d	Any digit	0, 1, 2, 3... 9
\w	Any word character	a-z, A-Z, 0-9, _
\s	Any whitespace	space, tab, line break
\t	Tab character	→
\r	Paragraph break	¶
\n	Forced line break	↵

🔢 Quantifiers (How Many?) Easy

Quantifiers specify how many times a pattern should repeat:

Quantifier	Meaning	Example
*	Zero or more	ab*c → ac, abc, abbc, abbbc...
+	One or more	ab+c → abc, abbc, abbbc... (not ac)
?	Zero or one	colou?r → color, colour
{3}	Exactly 3	\d{3} → 123, 456, 789
{2,4}	Between 2 and 4	\d{2,4} → 12, 123, 1234
{2,}	2 or more	\s{2,} → multiple spaces

⚓ Anchors (Where?) Medium

Anchors match positions, not characters:

Anchor	Meaning	Example
^	Start of paragraph	^The → "The" at paragraph start
$	End of paragraph	\.$ → period at paragraph end
\b	Word boundary	\bcat\b → "cat" not "category"

📦 Groups & Capturing Medium

Parentheses ( ) create groups that you can reuse in the replacement:

In Find	In Change	Meaning
(pattern)	$1	First captured group
(first)(second)	$1 $2	First and second groups

🛠️ Practical Examples

Real patterns you can use today:

Typography Fixes

Cleanup Patterns

⚠️ Common Mistakes

Mistake	Problem	Solution
Forgetting to escape	. matches ANY character, not just period	Use \. for literal period
Greedy matching	".*" matches from first to LAST quote	Use ".*?" for shortest match
Case sensitivity	the won't find "The"	Use [Tt]he or enable case-insensitive
Testing on live document	Can't undo "Change All" properly	Always test on a copy first!

📚 Learn More About GREP

Want to understand GREP better? Here are some excellent resources:

Resource	Description
Treasures of GREP	Facebook group where InDesign professionals share, learn, and improve GREP workflows together
GREP in InDesign	The definitive book by Peter Kahrel
InDesignSecrets	Great community with GREP tips and tricks
CreativePro	Articles and tutorials from industry experts
Regex101	Online regex tester (GREP is based on regular expressions)

🚀 Next Steps

Now that you know the basics:

1. Browse our library — See real patterns and learn from them
2. Start simple — Fix double spaces, then try more complex patterns
3. Save your patterns — Query → Save Query in Find/Change
4. Contribute back — Share patterns that help you!