Find using Wildcards, Special Characters

[omega0401]

I am trying to find a two digit number that starts with a period OR a quote mark. I use the following search string: [."]^#^#

This search fails. It appears you can not combine wild characters and special characters in the same search. If that is true, is there another way to accomplish this?

[HansV]

Using wildcards, you can enter [."][0-9][0-9] in the Find What box, or alternatively [."][0-9]{2,2}

[omega0401]

Using wildcards, you can enter [."][0-9][0-9] in the Find What box, or alternatively [."][0-9]{2,2}

Thanks Hans. I totally forgot all about using the number range as a wildcard. I tried both methods and they find the period and number but for some reason they do not find the quote and number. Does this work for you or do you get the same results I got? I’m currently on Word 2002 but it should still work.

[HansV]

Using wildcards, [."][0-9][0-9] will find both a period followed by two digits and a quote followed by two digits:

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(This is in Word 2007, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work in earlier versions)

[omega0401]

Thanks for confirming that. I did the same exact thing in the Find What box as your example and Wildcards are turned on. Yet it skips the quote and the numbers but was successful finding the period and numbers. Another mystery. I'll keep experimenting with it and maybe I'll get lucky and find the reason.

[omega0401]

Does anyone have Word 2002 and could you run a quick test to see if it works for you? I would expect it does but it would be helpful to confirm that. If it doesn't work, it will save me time trying to figure out what's wrong.

[StuartR]

Thanks for confirming that. I did the same exact thing in the Find What box as your example and Wildcards are turned on. Yet it skips the quote and the numbers but was successful finding the period and numbers. Another mystery. I'll keep experimenting with it and maybe I'll get lucky and find the reason.

Is it possible that your document has a "curly quote" rather than a straight one. This is a different character so would not match.

[omega0401]

Thanks for confirming that. I did the same exact thing in the Find What box as your example and Wildcards are turned on. Yet it skips the quote and the numbers but was successful finding the period and numbers. Another mystery. I'll keep experimenting with it and maybe I'll get lucky and find the reason.

Is it possible that your document has a "curly quote" rather than a straight one. This is a different character so would not match.

You are right Stuart. I had curly quotes set. Thank you much for that solution.

What threw me off was if I just type only a quote in the Find What box and nothing else and wildcards turned off, it will find the curly quote. Now if I type just [“] with wildcards turned on, it does not find the quote. The search is behaving differently if I use wildcards or not. I was expecting consistent behavior. Since it can find a curly quote in the first example, I didn’t suspect a curly quote problem. This was interesting.

[HansV]

If "Use wildcards" is turned on, characters that don't signify a pattern are taken much more literally. For example, "Match case" is automatically applied. Similarly, straight and curly quotes are seen as different.