Excluding delimiters with Search in MS Word - regex

Question

Say I have the following string:
"Hello how are you."
Since MS Word allows for regular expressions, I can use "*" to find the complete string. But what if I want to exclude the delimiters (the quotes)? I'm afraid that MS Word doesn't support either of the two methods explained here. My question is: would there be any way to do this in one search query?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

There are different ways to achieve what you want. Here is one way to find text in VBA Word without the dilimiters using Regex. Let's say you have the following text in Word Document (do not copy and paste it from here as the the website distorts the Double quotes. See the screenshot)
This is a sample
"This is another Sample"
"Wake me up before you go go"
"War of the worlds"
The code to return text using Regex between two quotes is as follows
Sub FindText()
Dim regEx, Match, Matches
Set regEx = New RegExp
regEx.Pattern = "([^“]*)(?=\”)"
regEx.IgnoreCase = False
regEx.Global = True
Set Matches = regEx.Execute(ActiveDocument.Range.Text)
For Each Match In Matches
Debug.Print Match.Value
Next
End Sub
and if you want to say find "Wake me up before you go go" without quotes then you can use this as well
Sub FindText()
Dim regEx, Match, Matches
Dim searchText As String
searchText = "Wake me up before you go go"
Set regEx = New RegExp
regEx.Pattern = "([^“]*)(?=\”)"
regEx.IgnoreCase = False
regEx.Global = True
Set Matches = regEx.Execute(ActiveDocument.Range.Text)
For Each Match In Matches
If Trim(Match.Value) = (searchText) Then
Debug.Print "Found"
End If
Next
End Sub
NOTE: The website distorts the actual double quote so I am posting screenshots.
FOLLOWUP
For the sample file that you posted, use this code
Sub FindText()
Dim regEx, Match, Matches
Set regEx = New RegExp
regEx.Pattern = """([^""]*)"""
regEx.IgnoreCase = False
regEx.Global = True
Set Matches = regEx.Execute(ActiveDocument.Range.Text)
For Each Match In Matches
Debug.Print Match.SubMatches(0)
Next
End Sub
Sample File can be downloaded from here. Please note that this link will be active for 7 days.
Sample File
HTH
Sid

Answer 2

You are wrong. Word does support some wildcards, ? for a single character and * for a series of characters.
This is not a regular expression
means no lookbehind and no lookahead

Answer 3

While there will never be everything in Ms-Word that you want, e.g. like this one where you want to find something else, but want to select only a part of it, there are always macros which you can program to accomplish your task.
Add the following VBA code to your document. You can add a custom button on the toolbar to call it.
Sub FindSpecial()
FindSpecialA
End Sub
Private Sub FindSpecialA(Optional text As String)
Dim ToFind As String
ToFind = InputBox("Enter the text you want to find in double-quotes (without double-quotes):" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & "(Enter * to match anything within double-quotes)", "Find", text)
If ToFind = "" Then Exit Sub
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.text = """" & ToFind & """"
.Replacement.text = ""
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchCase = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
.MatchSoundsLike = False
.MatchAllWordForms = False
If ToFind = "*" Then
.text = "[“""]*[”""]"
.MatchWildcards = True
End If
End With
Selection.Find.Execute
If Selection.Find.Found Then
Selection.MoveStart unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=1
Selection.MoveEnd unit:=wdCharacter, Count:=-1
FindSpecialA ToFind
Else
MsgBox "Not found!"
End If
End Sub
EDIT:
Updated the code to handle wildcard * matches.

Answer 4

Some versions of MS Word support regex-style groups with their "search with wildcards" option, meaning that if you can create a search expression between two quotes -- the one that works for me is "?#" -- you can change it to "(?#)" and enter \1 for the replace text. This will replace the text that was found with just the text that matches the expression between the parentheses, getting rid of your quote marks. (MS Word's ?# is equivalent to .* (non-greedy) in common regex.)
This works for me in Word 2008 for Mac, but I don't have a guide to which versions of Office support this syntax.
Beware! In this search form, Word does not equate the straight quotes on your keyboard with the curly quotes it inserts in order to look pretty. You will need to either turn off "smart quotes" for this document, or construct your search phrase by cutting and pasting the opening and closing quote characters from your document.

Answer 5

I have had luck using color (Format < Font in the Search dialog box while you are clicked into Find What) to solve problems like this. Execute search all content with delimiters (“*” with wildcards checked for this example) and replace using a non-black color like blue. Search and replace delimiter (in this case quote marks) color from blue to black. Perform changes to content in blue. Select all and change to black. If this comes up often, I would suggest macros on a toolbar for the step one (blue, take blue off delimiter) and step two (change all to black).