Comments on Tips & Techniques: Use GREP to find URL's

@Anonymous: The reason that this GREP string finds...

2011-06-27T08:55:43.111-05:00

@Anonymous: The reason that this GREP string finds "www.testsite.nl" even though .nl isn't referenced in the GREP is this:

The GREP is saying "look for 1 or more consecutive non-whitespace characters preceeded by http, ftp, or www

OR

1 or more consecutive non-whitespace characters followed by .gov, .us, .net, .com, .edu, .org, or .biz"

It's written this way to try to accommodate a wide variety of urls.

Don't no much about grapes but how come this g...

2011-06-23T06:10:16.117-05:00

Don't no much about grapes but how come this grep also finds URLs like www.testsite.nl? So ending in '.nl'?

(?i)(http|ftp|www)(\S+)|(\S+) (\.gov|\.us|\.net|\.com|\.edu|\.org|\.biz)

I looks like it only should find URLS ending with .gov, .us .net etc. But I'm probably reading it wrong? ;-)

I've been working at it for a while and don...

2011-01-05T18:51:13.830-06:00

I've been working at it for a while and don't understand all of it, but this one works great and leaves out the periods at the end. The only hitch I've found is that it also picks up email addresses since it's essentially looking for ".com" or ".org" etc and catching anything attached.

\S*?(\.org|\.com|\.net|\.edu|\.us|\.gov|\.biz)+\S*\>/?

Hi, thank you so much for this article, and all th...

2010-10-17T16:01:55.663-05:00

Hi, thank you so much for this article, and all the useful comments!
I'm a complete novice, I found out about GREP yesterday, so bear with me if my modifications are crude, but these seem to work:

url-GREP (finish with a letter or digit)
(?i)(http|ftp|www)\S+[\l\u|\d]

e-mail-GREP (finish with a letter)
[\S]+[@][\S]+[\l]

@Claidheamdanns: I've put the period at the en...

2010-06-25T17:12:18.767-05:00

@Claidheamdanns: I've put the period at the end of the sentence issue on my list of things to look into when I have a minute. If I find a solution I'll create a new blog post about it. Thanks.

Yes, that's true. And that alone is a great re...

2010-06-25T17:06:47.748-05:00

Yes, that's true. And that alone is a great reason to upgrade. I'm spoiled at work. At home I am still on CS3, and I miss all these good features. Work that used to literally take 2 hours before can now be done in 5 minutes or less (no exaggeration).

Have you figured out a way to get the URLs to exclude the period when they fall at the end of a sentence? That would be very helpful for a piece we are working on.

Thanks for your tips on here. Very helpful!

@Claidheamdanns: I'm glad you found the GREP e...

2010-06-25T17:01:41.621-05:00

@Claidheamdanns: I'm glad you found the GREP examples useful. Yes indeed, GREP styles are wonderful! The original blog post was written "way back in the old days" before GREP styles existed (they made their debut in CS4.

BTW, thanks Keith. I've been puzzling over thi...

2010-06-25T16:59:02.526-05:00

BTW, thanks Keith. I've been puzzling over this URL one for about a week now, trying to find the right combo of code to get it all.

Another awesome way to use this, rather than as a find and replace, use it as a GREP style in the paragraph style(s) used in the document. For instance, a Character style to make the font blue, and underlined, can be automatically applied via GREP within the Paragraph style, so that emails and URLs are automatically formatted as they are typed or added to the document.

Interestingly, Keith's email address search do...

2010-06-25T16:54:33.921-05:00

Interestingly, Keith's email address search does end up (correctly) missing the period at the end of a sentence, even if the last thing in the sentence is an email address.

Anon, your expression misses some URLs that were c...

2010-06-25T16:51:29.357-05:00

Anon, your expression misses some URLs that were caught by Keith's, for instance: http://www.website.com/links

WOW -- both the Emails and URL GREP were perfect!...

2010-03-28T18:00:19.241-05:00

WOW -- both the Emails and URL GREP were perfect!! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!

yay for Anon, that's the one!

cheers fella

2008-11-27T07:35:00.000-06:00

yay for Anon, that's the one!

cheers fella

Try this modification:

(?i)(http|ftp|www)(\...

2008-08-11T22:22:00.000-05:00

Try this modification:

(?i)(http|ftp|www)(\S+)(\.\l{2,4})|(\S+)(\.\l{2,4})

This comment thread illustrates how tricky it can ...

2007-10-08T15:03:00.000-05:00

This comment thread illustrates how tricky it can be to set up "bulletproof" GREP searches. Oftentimes, a GREP string can be hammered out quickly that will solve 95% of one's needs. But to get it bulletproof so that each and every exception is considered can take a LOT more development time. This also illustrates that there is more than one way to skin a cat when it comes to GREP.

Sometime when I have a chance, I'll revisit the URL GREP search and see if I can't fine-tune it a bit.

Thanks. The email GREP works great.

I'm fi...

2007-10-05T10:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks. The email GREP works great.

I'm finding that the URL GREP sometimes grabs too much, like a period at the end of a URL at the end of a sentence.

I found the following GREP string to catch more ad...

2007-10-04T16:13:00.000-05:00

I found the following GREP string to catch more addresses variations:

[\S]+[.][\S]+

It will even pickup formats that do not have a standard prefixes, for example:

w3.adobe.com
adobe.com

However, the problem is that it will also pickup any string that includes periods with the obvious culprits being email addresses, for example:

john.doe@adobe.com
jdoe@adobe.com

I still haven't been able to figure out the negative/positive lookahead/lookbehind metacharacters to omit instances that include the "@" symbol.

As a workaround, I usually set up a character style (sometimes only defining it and not applying any ovverides to it) and utilize it to tag the email addresses using the following GREP string:

[\S]+[@][\S]+

I perform the "Email Address" find/change to apply the charcter style first. I follow this up with the "Web Address" find/change which only picks up strings that have NOT had any character styles applied, hence leaving the formatted addresses alone.

Any ideas on how to make this easier?

Eric, here is a "Find What" string for email addre...

2007-10-03T11:50:00.000-05:00

Eric, here is a "Find What" string for email addresses that I picked up somewhere. Hopefully this will work for you.

[\w-]+(?:\.[\w-]+)*@(?:[\w-]+\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2,7}

This is great. Just what I needed to add links to ...

2007-10-02T21:30:00.000-05:00

This is great. Just what I needed to add links to a PDF I'm creating.

Do you have a similar GREP for email addresses?

Thanks.

Comments on Tips & Techniques: Use GREP to find URL's

@Anonymous: The reason that this GREP string finds...

Don't no much about grapes but how come this g...

I've been working at it for a while and don...

Hi, thank you so much for this article, and all th...

@Claidheamdanns: I've put the period at the en...

Yes, that's true. And that alone is a great re...

@Claidheamdanns: I'm glad you found the GREP e...

BTW, thanks Keith. I've been puzzling over thi...

Interestingly, Keith's email address search do...

Anon, your expression misses some URLs that were c...

WOW -- both the Emails and URL GREP were perfect!...

yay for Anon, that's the one!cheers fella

Try this modification:(?i)(http|ftp|www)(\...

This comment thread illustrates how tricky it can ...

Thanks. The email GREP works great. I'm fi...

I found the following GREP string to catch more ad...

Eric, here is a "Find What" string for email addre...

This is great. Just what I needed to add links to ...

yay for Anon, that's the one!

cheers fella

Try this modification:

(?i)(http|ftp|www)(\...

Thanks. The email GREP works great.

I'm fi...