How to search for a return character.

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vwMellel
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How to search for a return character.

Post by vwMellel »

I cannot see how to search for the return character, in Mellel itself or the guide. The guide (page 215) tells me that "Paragraph boundary" is not the same as the Return character but helpfully says nothing about how to just enter a return character. Also Any Character is not for use with return characters (page 213)

If I paste some text in to the find box which contains the return character, it is retained and can be searched for with the other pasted text, although I cannot 'see' the return character.

I simply wish to search for the return character in a document and replace with a return character and other text. Is this possible?
Bulow
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by Bulow »

Select 'show' + 'invisible characters'. Select a carriage return. Do ⌘+e and then ⌘+f
vwMellel
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by vwMellel »

Thank you for the information.

The return character is now shown in the find or replace windows. Which makes doing a replace difficult. It is not possible easily to work out whether the characters to be replace are before or after the return which is pasted into the replace window. Bizarre method of doing searches or replaces which include the return character and not to show a representation of the return character.

Also in a list of 8 lines, Mellel crashed once and then took several minutes to complete the search (and with no option to exit from the search other than kill the application).
rpcameron
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by rpcameron »

I find that Mellel's implementation of regex searching is a bit odd at times, and can be hard to decipher. Personally I find it easier to write it out as an actual regex, then translate that into Mellel's format.

What exactly are you trying to find and replace, and is the 'return' part of what needs to be replaced?
— Robert Cameron
vwMellel
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by vwMellel »

Thank you for the response.

What I wished to do is trivial:

1. I have a list of items, each on its on line
2. Search for the return character
3. Replace the return character with a full stop and the return character

This is trivially easier in other major word processors I use (WordPerfect, Word, LibreOffice, Nissus). All of these provide a specific, showable (and selectable from a list) code for the return character.
rpcameron
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by rpcameron »

In your situation then, you'll want to put the carriage return in the find window, then select it and group it. Then, in the the replace field, insert the full stop followed by the backreference to group 1. This will accomplish what you're trying to do.
— Robert Cameron
vwMellel
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by vwMellel »

rpcameron,

Thank you for the information. With the explanation, I was able to do the search and replace.
Daniel Geiger
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Re: How to search for a return character.

Post by Daniel Geiger »

Easier way is to place cursor into search or replace field, then go to main menu on top of the screen Insert -> Breaks then select the appropriate break or invisible character you want. This should be in the manual somewhere. Just tried it on a hunch, and it happens to work. Mellel 4.2.7r10 on Mac running OS Catalina.
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