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Meeting Summary

GREP: It's Not Just for Programmers Anymore
Wed, Apr 30th, 2008 at 6:00 PM
U.S. Navy Memorial Auditorium
Event Details

Our April 30 event was a big hit with ~140 people in attendance. The evening started with the usual pizza and drinks with assorted cookies and pastries for dessert.

Then we all headed into the auditorium for another fascinating presentation by Michael Murphy, host of the podcast, “The InDesigner.” GREP is one of those things that many InDesign users have never heard of, let alone used. And most who have heard of GREP figure it’s way beyond their skill level.

GREP is somewhat like “Find & Replace” on steroids (legal in this context). “Find & Replace” typically searches for character strings and replaces them with other character strings. It looks for exact strings and makes exact replacements.

Michael described GREP is his handout thusly: “More typically, GREP searches for patterns. Patterns describe text in general terms. Consider a paragraph. How would you describe a paragraph? A paragraph is a range of text characters followed by a hard return. That’s a pattern. Two paragraphs in a row would be a range of text followed by a hard return followed by another range of text followed by another hard return. It doesn’t matter what the words in those paragraphs are GREP doesn’t care. GREP only cares about the pattern.

“Patterns are everywhere, whether you know it or not. Once you’ve used GREP a few times, you’ll start to see patterns where you never noticed them before.”

Most attendees found the presentation entertaining and informative. The handout, which is available (below) as a downloadable PDF, takes you step-by-step through a GREP application. Give it a try!

Thank you

Thanks to Michael Murphy for a wonderful and very well-received presentation, to the sponsors for providing the raffle prizes and thanks to everyone who made this evening possible. Check out your Member Benefits area for special discounts and offers.

Upcoming Industry Events

MEI is holding a seminar to highlight InDesign, InCopy, and the K4 Publishing System, with a focus on associations. This is a very exciting opportunity that will be of much interest to some of you. The K4 Capital Seminar is a half-day presentation—Thursday, June 19 from 1:00pm to 4:00p.m, or Friday, June 20 from 9:00 am to noon, at the Capital Hilton. Pre-registration is required.

For more information or to register, go to
http://www.maned.com/K4CapitalSeminar/Adobe.html.

Comments from attendees

Here’s what some of the attendees had to say:

“Michael is AWESOME! Now when our (lazy) editors think I’m being too fussy and demanding (aka frustrated and a standards bearer!), I can truly ’get a GREP.’”

“OUTSTANDING! Mike gave some very practical examples for the use of GREP and a well thought out presentation that made it easier to follow and take away to use myself.”

“This really helped me understand the power of GREP. It was perfectly geared to new users.”

“Michael is an intensely good presenter. He really knows his stuff, he communicates well, he’s funny and lively, and he put together a great handout. I really learned useful stuff.”

“Outstanding handout! well organized, concise and contains the exact details I wanted to know.”

Next Meeting

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Because of our special event on June 24 which we are holding at the Harman Center of Arts (shh, but mark your calendar—more info to come) our regular meeting scheduled for June 18 will be postponed until later in the summer.

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Attached File/s

• indesign_grep_mmurphy.pdf  -  Delete...