Find/search special character help needed

[Fred Ridder]

Emmy A. wrote:
 
> I have a FrameMaker question for you.
 
Then I believe you've posted to the right place...
 
> Our product names consist of two letters, a hyphen, 
> and some numbers, e.g., AB-1234. I always use a 
> non-breaking hyphen (inserted by typing the 3-letter 
> sequence: Esc, -, h) because I don't want the name 
> to split onto two lines if it's positioned at the end of line. 
> However, when I try to do a global search for all instances 
> of the product name, the "Esc - h" sequence doesn't 
> work in the Find text box. Typing that key sequence 
> becomes -h and the Esc is ignored, and Find looks for 
> AB-h1234. Even when I copy an instance of the name 
> from my text and paste it into the Find text box, it 
> doesn't work. Find just treats the - as a regular -, 
> not a non-breaking hyphen. Same problem with replace. 
> Can't type text with an Esc sequence into the Change 
> text box. The kludge I use is to search on just the 
> numeric portion of the name, e.g., 1234, and deal with 
> the AB- part manually. But this is time-consuming. 
> Any ideas?
 
If you refer to Appendix A of the FrameMaker User Guide, 
you will see that you can type a non-breaking hyphen in 
a dialog box using the 2-character code \+. Works in 
Find/Replace, when defining cross-reference formats, 
when entering marker text--anyplace where you can't
use Escape codes.
 
Fred Ridder