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Find and replace content and objects

Last updated on Jan 26, 2023 10:56:22 AM GMT

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Troubleshooting

The Find and replace operation comes handy as your document goes through revisions. You can globally find and replace text, objects, fonts, glyphs and colors.

Text	Search for and change specific occurrences of characters, words, groups of words, or text formatted. You can find and replace special characters such as symbols, markers, and white space characters. Use Wildcard options to broaden your search.
GREP	Use advanced pattern-based search techniques to search for and replace text and formatting.
Glyph	Search for and replace glyphs using Unicode or GID/CID values, especially useful to search for and replace glyphs in Asian languages.
Object	Search for and replace formatting effects and attributes in objects and frames. For example, you can find objects with a 4-pt stroke and replace the stroke with a drop shadow.
Color	Search for and change specific occurrences of a color. You can locate colors in objects, text styles, strokes, and linked assets.

Find and change text

If you want to list, find, and replace fonts in your document, you might want to use Find/Replace Font instead of Find/Change.

Find and change text

To search a range of text or a story, select the text or place the insertion point in the story. To search more than one document, open the documents.
Select Edit > Find/Change, and then select the Text tab.
Specify the range of your search from the Search menu, and click icons to include locked layers, parent pages, footnotes, and other items in the search.
In the Find What box, describe what you want to search for:
- Type or paste the text you want to find.
- To search for or replace tabs, spaces, or other special characters, select a representative character (metacharacter) from the pop‑up menu to the right of the Find What box. You can also choose wildcard options such as Any Digit or Any Character.
Use metacharacters to search for special characters, such as a tab.
- Use a predefined query to find and replace text. (See Find/change items using queries.)
In the Change To box, type or paste the replacement text. You can also select a representative character from the pop‑up menu to the right of the Change To box.
Select Find.
To continue searching, select Find Next, Change (to change the current occurrence), Change All (a message indicates the total number of changes), or Change/Find (to change the recent event and search for the next one).
The Find/Change dialog has two search direction buttons - Forward and Backward. Although the default selection is Forward, you can switch to Backward to reverse the search flow.
Select Done.

If you change your mind about replacing text, select Edit > Undo Replace Text (or Undo Replace All Text).

To find the next occurrence of a previously searched-for phrase without having to open the Find/Change dialog, select Edit > Find Next. In addition, previous search strings are stored in the Find/Change dialog. You can select a search string from the menu to the right of the option.

Find and change formatted text

Select Edit > Find/Change.
If the Find Format and Change Format options don’t appear, select More Options. Vice-versa, you can select Fewer Options to view lesser options.
Select the Find Format box or the Specify Attributes To Find icon to the right of the Find Format Settings section.
On the left of the Find Format Settings dialog, select a type of formatting, specify the format attributes, and select OK.

Some OpenType formatting options appear in both the OpenType Options and Basic Character Formats (Position menu) sections.

Note:

To search for (or replace with) formatting only, leave the Find What or Change To box blank.
If you want to apply formatting to the text found, select the Change Format box, or select the Specify Attributes To Change icon in the Change Format Settings section. Then select a type of formatting, specify the format attributes, and select OK.
Use the Find and Change buttons to format the text.

If you specify formatting for your search criteria, info icons appear over the Find What or Change To boxes. These icons indicate that formatting attributes have been set and that the find or change operation will be restricted accordingly.

Note:

Select the Clear button to remove all formatting attributes in the Find Format Settings or Change Format Settings sections.

Common Find/Change techniques

Wildcard searches	Specify wildcards, such as Any Digit or Any White Space, to broaden your search. For example, typing “s^?ng” in the Find What box searches for words beginning with an “s” and ending with “ng,” such as “sing,” “sang,” “song,” and “sung.” You can either type wildcard characters or choose an option from the Wildcards submenu in the pop‑up menu next to the Find What text field.
Clipboard for metacharacter searches	To search for metacharacters such as em dashes or bullet characters, you may want to select the text first and paste it into the Find What box to spare the trouble of entering metacharacters. InDesign automatically converts pasted special characters to their metacharacter equivalent.
Replace with clipboard contents	You can replace search items with either formatted or unformatted content copied to the clipboard. You can even replace text with a graphic you copied. Simply copy the item, and then, in the Find/Change dialog box, choose an option from the Other submenu from the pop‑up menu to the right of the Change To box.
Find and remove unwanted text	To remove unwanted text, define the text you want to remove in the Find What box and leave the Change To box empty (make sure that no formatting is set in this box).
XML tagging	You can apply XML tags to text you search for.
Search in forward or backward direction	You can search in a forward or backward direction. This enables you to search for text in case you skip the text when searching for it. So, searching in forward and backward directions helps find text as compared to finding the search again.

Search options for finding and changing text

Search	Contains options that determine the range of the search.
Document	Search the entire document or All Documents to search all open documents.
Story	Search all text in the currently selected frame, including text in other threaded text frames and overset text. Select Stories to search stories in all selected frames. This option appears only if a text frame is selected or an insertion point is placed.
To End Of Story	Search from the insertion point. This option appears only if an insertion point is placed.
Selection	Search only selected text. This option appears only if text is selected.
Include Locked Layers	Searches for text on layers that have been locked using the Layer Options dialog box. You cannot replace text on locked layers.
Include Locked Stories	Searches for text in stories that have been checked out as part of an InCopy workflow. You cannot replace text in locked stories.
Include Hidden Layers	Searches for text on layers that have been hidden using the Layer Options dialog box. When text on a hidden layer is found, you can see highlighting where the text appears, but you cannot see the text. You can replace text on hidden layers. Text in a hidden condition is always omitted from searching.
Include Parent Pages	Searches for text on parent pages.
Include Footnotes	Searches footnote text.
Case Sensitive	Searches for only the word or words that exactly match the capitalization of the text in the Find What box. For example, a search for PrePress won’t find Prepress, prepress, or PREPRESS.
Whole Word	Disregards search characters if they are part of another word. For example, if you search for any as a whole word, InDesign disregards many.

Find and change fonts

Use the Find/Replace Font command to search for and list the fonts used throughout your document. You can then replace any fonts (except those in imported graphics) with any other fonts available on your system. You can even replace a font that’s part of a text style. Note the following:

A font name is listed once for its use in the layout and listed each time in imported graphics. For example, if you use the same font three times in the layout and three times in imported graphics, it will be listed four times in the Find/Replace Font dialog —once for all layout instances and three more times for each imported graphic. If fonts are not embedded in graphics, the font name may not be listed in the Find/Replace Font dialog.
Find/Replace Font isn't available in a Story Editor window.
You can find and change composite fonts, but you cannot change component fonts that are part of composite fonts.
Go to Type > Find/Replace Font to help ensure consistent output by analyzing font usage on pages and in imported graphics. To find and change specific text attributes, characters, or styles, select Edit > Find/Change.

Select Type > Find/Replace Font.
Select one or more font names from the Fonts In Document list.
Follow any of these options:
- To find the first occurrence of the selected font, select Find First. The Find First button is unavailable if the selected font is used in an imported graphic or if you selected multiple fonts in the list.
- To select an imported graphic that uses a font marked in the list by an imported image icon, select Find Graphic. The Find Graphic button isn’t available if the selected font is used only in the layout or if you selected multiple fonts in the Fonts In Document list.
Note:
Select More Info to view details about a selected font. To hide the details, select Less Info. The Info area is blank if you select multiple fonts in the list.

A font may be listed as Unknown if the file of the selected graphic doesn’t supply information about it. Fonts in bitmap graphics (such as TIFF images) won’t appear in the list as they aren’t true characters.
Select the new font you want to use from the Replace With list, and follow any of these options:
- Select Change to change just one occurrence of the selected font. This option isn't available if multiple fonts are selected.
- Select Change/Find to change the font in that occurrence, and then find the next instance. This option isn't available if multiple fonts are selected.
- Select Change All to change all instances of the font selected in the list. Select Redefine Style When Changing All to redefine a Paragraph Style or Character Style that includes the font.
When there are no more occurrences of a font in your file, its name is removed from the Fonts In Document list.

Note:

To change fonts in imported graphics, use the program that initially exported the graphic, and then replace the graphic or update the link using the Links panel.
Select Done.

You can open the Find/Replace Font dialog while viewing a document's preflight. In the Preflight dialog, switch to the Fonts tab and select Find/Replace Font.

Note:

To view the system folder in which a font appears, select the font in the Find/Replace Font dialog and select Reveal In Explorer (Windows) or Reveal In Finder (macOS).

Search using GREP expressions

You can create GREP expressions to find alphanumeric strings and patterns in long documents or multiple open documents. You can enter the GREP metacharacters manually or select them from the Special Characters For Search list. GREP searches are case-sensitive by default.

Select Edit > Find/Change, and select the GREP tab.
At the bottom of the dialog, specify your search range from the Search menu and select icons to include Locked Layers and Locked Objects, Parent Pages, Footnotes, and other items in the search.
In Find What, follow any of these options to construct a GREP expression:
- Enter the search expression manually. (See Metacharacters for searching.)
- Select the Special characters for search icon to set your search criteria.
Type or paste the replacement text in Change To.
Select Find.
To continue searching, select Find Next, Change, Change All, or Change/Find.

Note:

The Find/Change dialog has two search direction buttons - Forward and Backward. As search Forward is enabled by default, you can switch to Backward to reverse the search flow and helps search strings in the Text, GREP, and Glyph tabs.

Note:

You can also use GREP Styles to apply a character style to text with a GREP expression. The GREP Styles dialog is an excellent way to test your GREP expression. Add the examples you want to find to a paragraph, and then specify a character style and GREP expression in the GREP Styles dialog. When you turn on Preview, you can edit the expression until it affects all your examples properly.

Tips for constructing GREP searches

Here are some tips for constructing GREP expressions.

Many searches under the GREP tab are similar to those under the Text tab, but be aware that you need to insert different codes depending on which tab you’re using. In general, the Text tab metacharacters begin with a ^ (such as ^t for a tab) and GREP tab metacharacters begin with a \ (such as \t for a tab). However, not all metacharacters follow this rule. For example, a paragraph return is ^p in the Text tab and \r in the GREP tab. For a list of the metacharacters used for the Text and GREP tabs, see Metacharacters for searching.
To search for a character that has symbolic meaning in GREP, enter a backslash (\) before the character to indicate that the character that follows is literal. For example, a period ( . ) searches for any character in a GREP search; to search for an actual period, enter “\.”
Save the GREP search as a query if you intend to run it often or share it with someone else. (See Find/change items using queries.)
Use parentheses to divide your search into subexpressions. For example, if you want to search for “cat” or “cot,” you can use the c(a|o)t string. Parentheses are especially useful to identify groupings. For example, searching for “the (cat) and the (dog)” identifies “cat” as Found Text 1 and “dog” as Found Text 2. You can use the Found Text expressions (such as $1 for Found Text 1) to change only part of the found text.

GREP search examples

Follow these examples to learn how to take advantage of GREP expressions.

Example 1: Finding text within quotation marks

Suppose you want to search for any word enclosed in quotation marks (such as “Spain”), and you want to remove the quotation marks and apply a style to the word (so that it becomes Spain instead of “Spain”). The expression (")(\w+)(") includes three groupings, as indicated by parentheses ( ). The first and third groupings search for any quotation mark, and the second grouping searches for one or more word characters.

You can use the Found Text expressions to refer to these groupings. For example, $0 refers to all found text, and $2 refers to only the second grouping. By inserting $2 in the Change To field and specifying a character style in the Change Format field, you can search for a word within quotation marks and then replace the word with a character style. Because only $2 is specified, the $1 and $3 groupings are removed. (Specifying $0 or $1$2$3 in the Change To field would also apply the character style to the quotation marks.)

A. Finds all word characters enclosed in quotation marks B. The character style is applied to the second grouping (the word) while the first and third groupings (open and close quotes) are removed C. Character style specified

This example searches only for single words enclosed in quotation marks. If you want to search for phrases enclosed in parentheses, add wildcard expressions, such as (\s*.*\w*\d*), which looks for spaces, characters, word characters, and digits.

Example 2: Phone numbers

InDesign includes several search presets that you can choose from the Queries menu. For example, you can choose the Phone Number Conversion query, which looks like this:

$?(\d\d\d)$?[-. ]?(\d\d\d)[-. ]?(\d\d\d\d)

Phone numbers in the United States can appear in various formats, such as 206-555-3982, (206) 555-3982, 206.555.3982, and 206 555 3982. This string looks for any of these variations.

You can edit the grouping references in the Change To field to suit your needs. For example, you could use these expressions:

206.555.3982 = $1.$2.$3

206-555-3982 = $1-$2-$3

(206) 555-3982 = ($1) $2-$3

206 555 3982 = $1 $2 $3

Additional GREP examples

Experiment with the examples in this table to learn more about GREP searches.

Expression	Search string	Sample text	Matches (in bold)
Class of characters [ ]	[abc] Finds the letter a, b, or c.	Maria cuenta bien.	Mariacuentabien.
Beginning of paragraph ^	^~_.+ This searches the beginning of the paragraph (^) for an em dash (~_) followed by any character ( . ) one or more times (+).	“We saw—or at least we think we saw—a purple cow.” —Konrad Yoes	“We saw—or at least we think we saw—a purple cow.” —Konrad Yoes
Negative lookahead (?!pattern)	InDesign (?!CS.*?) The negative lookahead matches the search string only if it is not followed by the specified pattern.	InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS, and InDesign CS2	InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS, and InDesign CS2
Positive lookahead (?=pattern)	InDesign (?=CS.?) The positive lookahead matches the search string only if it is followed by the specified pattern. Use similar patterns for negative lookbehinds (?<!pattern) and positive lookbehinds (?<=pattern*).	InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS, and InDesign CS2	InDesign, InDesign 2.0, InDesign CS, and InDesign CS2
Groupings ( )	(quick) (brown) (fox)	The quick brown fox jumps up and down.	The quick brown fox jumps up and down. All found text = quick brown fox; Found Text 1= quick; Found Text 2 = brown; Found Text 3= fox
Non-marking parentheses (?:expression)	(quick) ($:brown) (fox)	The quick brown fox jumps up and down.	The quick brown fox jumps up and down. All found text = quick brown fox; Found Text 1= quick; Found Text 2 = fox
Case-insensitive on (?i)	(?i)apple You can also use (?i:apple)	Apple apple APPLE	AppleappleAPPLE
Case-insensitive off (?-i)	(?-i)apple	Apple apple APPLE	Apple apple APPLE
Multiline on (?m)	(?m)^\w+ In this example, the expression looks for one or more (+) word characters (\w) at the beginning of a line (^). The (?m) expression allows all lines within the found text to be treated as separate lines. (?m)^\w matches the beginning of each paragraph. (?-m)^\w matches only the beginning of the story.	One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight	One Two ThreeFour Five SixSeven Eight
Multiline off (?-m)	(?-m)^\w+	One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight	One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight
Single-line on (?s)	(?s)c.a The searches for any character ( . ) between the letters c and a. The (?s) expression matches any character, even if it falls on the next line. (.) matches anything other than a paragraph return. (?s)(.) matches anything, including paragraph returns.	abc abc abc abc	abc abcabc abc
Single-line off	(?-s)c.a	abc abc abc abc	abc abc abc abc
Repeat number of times { }	b{3} matches exactly 3 times b(3,} matches at least 3 times b{3,}? matches at least 3 times (shortest match) b{2,3} matches at least 2 times and not more than 3 b{2,3}? matches at least 2 times and not more than 3 (shortest match)	abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc	abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc abbc abbbc abbbbc abbbbbc

Metacharacters for search

Metacharacters represent a character or symbol in InDesign. Metacharacters in the Text section of the Find/Change dialog box begin with a caret (^); metacharacters in the GREP section begin with a tilde (~) or backslash (\). You can type metacharacters in the Text tab or GREP tab of the Find/Change dialog box.

Note:

Save time fixing punctuation errors by saving search strings as queries.

Here are some tables with Text and GREP metacharacters:

Character	Text	GREP
Tab Character	^t	\t
End of Paragraph	^p	\r
Forced Line Break	^n	\n
Any Page Number	^#	~#
Current Page Number	^N	~N
Next Page Number	^X	~X
Previous Page Number	^V	~V
Section Marker	^x	~x
Bullet Character	^8	~8
Japanese Bullet	^5	~5
Caret Character	^^	\^
Backslash Character	\	\\
Copyright Symbol	^2	~2
Ellipsis	^e	~e
Tilde	~	\~
Paragraph Symbol	^7	~7
Registered Trademark Symbol	^r	~r
Section Symbol	^6	~6
Trademark Symbol	^d	~d
Open Parenthesis Character	(	\(
Close Parenthesis Character	)	\)
Open Brace Character	{	\{
Close Brace Character	}	\}
Open Bracket Character	[	\[
Close Bracket Character	]	\]
Em Dash	^_	~_
En Dash	^=	~=
Discretionary Hyphen	^-	~-
Nonbreaking Hyphen	^~	~~
Ideographic Space	^(	~(
Em Space	^m	~m

Character	Text	GREP
En Space	^>	~>
Third Space	^3	~3
Quarter Space	^4	~4
Sixth Space	^%	~%
Flush Space	^f	~f
Hair Space	^\|	~\|
Nonbreaking Space	^s	~s
Nonbreaking Space (fixed width)	^S	~S
Thin Space	^<	~<
Figure Space	^/	~/
Punctuation Space	^.	~.
Any Double Quotation Mark	"	"
Any Single Quotation Mark	'	'
Straight Double Quotation Mark	^"	~"
Double Left Quotation Mark	^{	~{
Double Right Quotation Mark	^}	~}
Straight Single Quotation Mark	^'	~'
Single Left Quotation Mark	^[	~[
Single Right Quotation Mark	^]	~]
Standard carriage return	^b	~b
Column Break	^M	~M
Frame Break	^R	~R
Page Break	^P	~P
Odd Page Break	^L	~L
Even Page Break	^E	~E
Discretionary Line Break	^k	~k
Right Indent Tab	^y	~y
Indent to Here	^i	~i
End Nested Style Here	^h	~h
Nonjoiner	^j	~j

Character	Text	GREP
Found Text 1-9		$1 (specifies the number of the grouping found, such as $3 for the third grouping; groupings are enclosed in parentheses)

Here's a list of Meta characters that can only be entered in the Find What box, not the Change To box.

Character	Text	GREP
Any Variable	^v	~v
Anchored Object Marker	^a	~a
Footnote Reference Marker	^F	~F
Index Marker	^I	~I
Running header (paragraph style) variable	^Y	~Y
Running header (character style) variable	^Z	~Z
Custom text variable	^u	~u
Last page number variable	^T	~T
Chapter number variable	^H	~H
Creation date variable	^S	~S
Modification date variable	^o	~o
Output date variable	^D	~D
File name variable	^l (lowercase L)	~l (lowercase L)
Any Digit	^9	\d
Any character that is not a digit		\D
Any Letter	^$	[\l\u]
Any Character	^?	. (inserts period in Change To)
White Space (any space or tab)	^w	\s (inserts space in Change To)
Any character that is not a white space		\S
Any word character		\w
Any character that is not a word character		\W
Any uppercase letter		\u
Any character that is not an uppercase letter		\U
Any lowercase letter		\l
Any character that is not a lowercase letter		\L
Kanji	^K	~K
Beginning of Word		\<
End of Word		\>

Character	GREP
Word Boundary	\b
Opposite of Word Boundary	\B
Beginning of Paragraph	^
End of Paragraph [location]	$
Zero or One Time	?
Zero or More Times	*
One or More Times	+
Zero or One Time (Shortest Match)	??
Zero or More Times (Shortest Match)	*?
One or More Times (Shortest Match)	+?
Marking Subexpression	( )
Non-marking Subexpression	(?: )
Character Set	[ ]
Or	\|
Positive Lookbehind	(?<= )
Negative Lookbehind	(?<! )
Positive Lookahead	(?= )
Negative Lookahead	(?! )
Case-insensitive On	(?i)
Case-insensitive Off	(?-i)
Multiline On	(?m)
Multiline Off	(?-m)
Single-line On	(?s)
Single-line Off	(?-s)
Any alphanumeric character	[[:alnum:]]
Any alphabetic character	[[:alpha:]]
Any blank character, either space or tab	[[:blank:]]
Any control character	[[:control:]]
Any graphical character	[[:graph:]]
Any printable character	[[:print:]]
Any punctuation character	[[:punct:]]
Any character whose code is greater than 255 (applies only to the wide character traits classes)	[[:unicode:]]
Any hexadecimal digit character 0-9, a-f, and A-F	[[:xdigit:]]
Any character of a certain glyph set, such as a, à, á, â, ã, ä, å, A, À, Á, Â, Ã, Ä and Å	[[=a=]]

The following Meta characters can be entered in the Change To box, not the Find What box:

Character	Text	GREP
Clipboard Contents, Formatted	^c	~c
Clipboard Contents, Unformatted	^C	~C
All Found Text		$0

Find and change glyphs

The Glyph section of the Find/Change dialog is handy for replacing glyphs that share the same Unicode value with other similar glyphs, such as alternate glyphs.

InDesign Secrets provides a clear example of finding and changing glyphs at Finding and Changing Glyphs.

Select Edit > Find/Change.
Specify a range from the Search menu and select icons to determine whether items such as Locked Layers or Locked Objects, Parent Pages, and Footnotes are included in the search.
Under Find Glyph, select the Font Family and Font Style in which the glyph is located.

The Font Family menu only displays those fonts applied to text in the current document. Fonts in new styles don't appear.
Follow any of these options to enter the Glyph you want:
- Select the button beside the Glyph box, and then double-click a glyph on the panel. This panel works like the Glyphs panel.
- Select Unicode or GID/CID, and enter the code for the glyph.
Note:
You can use other methods to enter the glyph you want to find in the Glyph box.

Select a glyph in the document window, then select Load Selected Glyph In Find from the context menu.

Select a glyph in the Glyphs panel and Load Glyph In Find from the context menu.
Under Change Glyph, enter the replacement glyph the same way you enter the glyph you’re searching for.
Select Find.

To continue searching, select Find Next, Change, Change All, or Change/Find.

Note:

The Find/Change dialog has two search direction buttons - Forward and Backward. As search Forward is enabled by default, you can switch to Backward to reverse the search flow and helps search strings in the Text, GREP, and Glyph tabs.

Find and change objects

You can use the Find/Change dialog to find and replace the attributes and effects applied to objects, graphics, and text frames.

For example, to give drop shadows a uniform color, transparency, and offset distance, you can use the Find/Change dialog to search for and replace drop shadows throughout a document.

Select Edit > Find/Change.
Select the Object tab.
Select the Find Object Format box, or the Specify Attributes To Find icon .
In the Find Object Format Options dialog, select a type of formatting, specify the format attributes, and then select OK.

Ensure that the categories you want to search for are in the appropriate state. You can use one of three states for each Effects category: On, Off, or Ignore.
If you want to apply formatting to the object found, select Change Object Format, or the Specify Attributes To Change icon to select a type of formatting or specify the format attributes.
Select Find Next, Change, Change All, or Change/Find to find and change objects.

Find and change colors

You can quickly find a color in a document or several open documents in InDesign. Select Color in the Find/Change dialog box to search for specific instances of color, and if desired, replace it with another color. You can also use the Color tab to locate new colors in your Swatches panel.

find/change color — Go to Find/Change panel directly from Swatches to locate colors

Select Edit > Deselect All to make sure no objects are selected.
To locate a color, from the Swatches panel, select Find this color. To search and replace in more than one document, ensure that all these documents open in InDesign.
In the Find Color menu, select the color you want to change.
To replace it with a new color, use any of these options:
- From the Change Color menu, select the color you want to replace with.
- Select Select New Color Swatch to create a new swatch. Select Add to save this to your Swatches panel.
Select Find Next. When the first instance of the color is highlighted, select Change All. When the alert indicates all additional replacements, select OK.

Find/change items using queries

You can find and change text, objects, and glyphs by using or constructing a query. A query is a defined find-and-change operation. InDesign offers several preset queries for changing punctuation formats and other useful actions, such as changing telephone number formats. By saving a query you constructed, you can run it again and share it with others.

Search using queries

Select Edit > Find/Change.
Select a query from the Query list. The queries are grouped by type.
Specify a range to search on the Search menu. The search range isn't stored with the query.
Select Find.
To continue searching, select Find Next, Change, Change All, or Change/Find.

After you select a search query, you can adjust the settings to fine-tune your search.

Save queries

Save a query in the Find/Change dialog to rerun it or share it with others. You can view the saved queries under the Query list of the Find/Change dialog.

Select Edit > Find/Change.
Select Text, GREP, or a different tab to undertake the search you want.
Select icons to determine whether items such as Locked Layers or Locked Objects, Parent Pages, and Footnotes are included in the search.

These items are included in the saved query. However, the range of the search isn’t saved with the query.
Define the Find What and Change To fields. (See Metacharacters for searching and Search using GREP expressions.)
Select the Save Query button and enter a name for the query.

If you use the name of an existing query, you're asked to replace it. Select Yes to update the existing query.

Delete queries

Select a query from the Query list and select the Delete Query button.

Load queries

Customized queries are stored as XML files. The names of customized queries appear in the Query list in the Find/Change dialog.

To load a query that was given to you so that it appears in the Query list, copy the query file to the appropriate location:

Users\[username]\Library\Preferences\Adobe InDesign\[Version]\[Language]\Find-Change Queries\[query type]

Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\[Version]\[Language]\Find-Change Queries\[query type]

Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\InDesign\[Version]\[Language]\Find-Change Queries\[query type]

related resources

Create GREP styles

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