How to add a space after all numbers using Find&Replace?

English
#1

In my document, I have
1 some text 1 and more 2 and more 3 and more 4.
2 some text
3sometext 1 and more 2 and more 3 and more 4.
4some text

I would like to add a space after the 3 and 4 at the start of a line (without modifying 3 and 4 later, and I’d like to do all the numbers in one Find&Replace. 1 and 2 already have a space after them so don’t need another space.

So far, I use ‘regular expressions’ and ^[1-9] but I’m far from understanding how to use this, so I just did ^1’spacebar’ Replace with 1, then find ^1 and replace with 1’spacebar’, and then the same for 2, etc.

I’d like to know how to do this all at once:

FIND: numbers followed immediately by a letter, and REPLACE: add a space after that number

Or, perhaps an alternative method.

(Also, is there a webpage that has a list of advanced commands for Find&Replace? I’ve read the standard one on LibreOffice but it’s limited for advanced things.)

#2

You have to use parantheses ( ) to tell the regular expression to store, what was found, so you can reference this in replace. As you already had ^[1-9] try

(^[1-9])([a-z])

as search pattern and replace with

$1 $2

so the space between $1 and $2 will be inserted between your two found parts, the digit $1 and the letter $2.

The LibreOffice help page List of Regular Expressions
had a link to the icu-page wich was useful, but now there is (only ?) general talk of the use of the library, no direct help on regular-expressions.

Direct link to the needed part of the icu-doc: Regular Expressions | ICU Documentation

You may check, if it is necessary to improve the regular expression using \p{letter} as the one used above does not even find upper-case and will fail on accented characters.

1 Like
#3

… because using obsolete version of LibreOffice Help (v.6.2) would give you a link to obsolete ICU documentation page (http://userguide.icu-project.org/strings/regexp), which they have changed to https://unicode-org.github.io/icu/userguide/strings/regexp.html since then; and the older link only redirects now to their documentation home page. Using latest help helps :wink:

2 Likes
#4

I don’t know why google prefers to show version 6 when I use my mobile. In this case I opted to search on icu directly to update my post while you wrote your comment… But you save me from checking current help when I’m at my desk…

#5

Here’s another page:

https://wiki.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/How_Tos/Regular_Expressions_in_Writer

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