Superscript just the "2" in a text string "m2"? : Adobe Indesign

Hi,

I need to know how to change all occurrences of the text "m2" in an indesign CS3 document, to "m2", where the "2" is styled as superscript i.e. the symbol for metres squared (I'm on the right hand side of the Atlantic as you can see!).

The text has already had a sequence of paragraph styles applied to it, therefore the "m2" occurrences throughout the document may be in several sizes and weights of a single font family, so any solutions would need to leave this formatting in place.

I have experimented with using a character style with only one attribute (superscript) in the Change Format section of find/replace, but this then changes the "m" to superscript as well.

Is this sort of thing outside the scope of Indesign's Find/Replace functionality?

Any pointers or suggestions gratefully received.

Best wishes,

Christian.

Find/replace all "m2" with "m_xxxx2" where "_" is a space. Find/replace all "xxxx2" with superscript style. Find/replace all "_xxxx2" with "2". I'm sure there are much slicker ways to do this...

Thanks JM

I feel a bit dumb now - I used to use this "2 stage" find/replace years ago and always found it useful.

Christian

The old multi-stage find and replace is a cunning trick in the armoury. I don’t think you should feel dumb ********** but beware of looking in the whites of J Maloneys eyes!

If you're working with CS3, there is a much slicker way to do just that.

In GREP mode, search for "(?<=m)2". Put just Superscript in the replace field.

Possible (!) explanation:
(?<= ...) switches on Positive Lookbehind for the '...' part of the search string. That means that only the '2's will be found with a preceding text '...'. Put 'm' in the place of the dots, and it'll find all '2's preceded by an 'm'. The 'm' itself is not touched.

Thanks jongware

Just tried the GREP version and works perfectly. I've let GREP pass me by so far, but clearly it's time to catch up...

Cheers.

I just posted a very similar query on Indesign Secrets. Thanks for the assistance!