Wild Card Find & Replace

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I have a huge list of glossary. I would like to change the first word (a term) in all paragraphs to Bold & Red.
All terms end with a colon (:).
For example:
Attest: To swear a statement is true.
Attorney: Also called Lawyer, Counsel. The legal representative of a party at a trial.
Attorney Client Privilege: The indefinite protection of oral, written, actions or ges­tures of communication between an attor­ney and client…

Thanks in advance.

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Hi armsys,

You could use:
Find = (<[A-Za-z ]{1,}:)
Replace = 1
and format the replacement bold & red. Do note that this will make the colon bold & red.

Alternatively, you could use:
Find = (^13[!:]{1,})
Replace = 1
and format the replacement bold & red. Do note that this will make the preceding paragraph break bold & red (but at least that won't show up on the print). It also won't pick up an entry that doesn't follow a paragraph break (eg a glossary entry that occurs immediately after a Section break or a table).

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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You can use regular expressions to find text at the beginning of a line, but multiple words is tricky.
It might be easier to use a macro because the keystrokes are consistent – go to a the beginning of the next line, search for colon, highlight everything back to the beginning of the line, and format.
We need to know what version of word processor you are running to help with the macro.

[Edit] Or what macropod said!

cheers, Paul

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Hi Macropd,
It’s a surprise and an honor to receive your reply. I’ve learned a lot from your articles in the past.
Before receiving your post, I used ^13A*: as the Find string. At least, it works. Yours is more eloquent.

Hi Paul,
Thanks for your help.

Armstrong

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It’s a surprise and an honor to receive your reply. I’ve learned a lot from your articles in the past
…
Armstrong

You’re welcome.

Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]

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You should give macropod a thumb up for such an excellent reply.

cheers, Paul

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Hi Paul,
Thanks for your reminder. Of course, I’m delighted to do so.
Thanks, Paul.
Armstrong

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