FrameMaker Tips

Search Tips, Part 2: Nonprinting Symbols

Refine your search by adding nonprinting symbols, such as tabs, to your search pattern.

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Category: Using FrameMaker

Relevance: All Manuals

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To find nonprinting symbols (such as tab, paragraph, and end-of-flow symbols) and positions (such as the start of a paragraph or word), use the following character sequences. You don’t have to turn on Use Wildcards.

To find	Type
Tab symbol	\t
Forced return	\r
End-of-paragraph symbol	\p
Start of paragraph	\P
Nonbreaking space	\ (space)
Thin space	\i, \st
En space	\N, \sn
Em space	\M, \sm
Numeric space	\#, \s#
End-of-flow symbol	\f
` (grave)	\{
\ (backslash)	\\
Discretionary hyphen	\- (hyphen)
Nonbreaking hyphen	\+
Suppress hyphenation symbol	\_ (underscore)
Start of word	\<
End of word	\>

For example, you could find empty paragraphs by searching for \P\p (beginning of paragraph followed by end of paragraph).

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Tip

When you copy text from a PDF you often end up with paragraph breaks at the end of each line. To clean this up, search for \p and leave the Change text box empty, this will delete the paragraph break. Don’t use Change All, you’ll need to check each line to determine if you need to add a space.