Replacing the first character, did I stumble onto the right answer

users
#1

I was trying to find a way to find and replace the beginning single tick in a column of cells, and out of frustration and trying to set up step one in a longer scheme of steps, I tried this:

Find
^.

Replace
&

It seemed to work instantly for some unknown reason. Exactly what did I do?

#2

I was trying to find a way to find and replace the beginning single tick in a column of cells, ...

Replace with what, pray?

... and out of frustration and trying to set up step one in a longer scheme of steps, I tried this:
Find
^.
Replace
&

It seemed to work instantly for some unknown reason. Exactly what did I do?

You must have had "Regular expressions" ticked. With that setting, the dot in the "Search for" box matches any single character and the circumflex requires the match to occur at the beginning of a paragraph. So yes; this will match the first character of each paragraph in the range. The ampersand in the "Replace with" box inserts a copy of the string that was matched by the search criterion - so here it will simply replace the matched text with what you had before. This will have no effect, of course - unless you have chosen to modify the attributes or the format of the string, in which case this technique can be very useful.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

Nothing, which it did (aka deleted it).

#4

That's not what "&" does for other people.

Brian Barker

#5

Not doubting that. I'll run a few other examples and see if I can post a
screenshot.