How to ignore punctuation in text? [Quark: Deleting words]

Scripting Forums AppleScript | Mac OS X
#1

Hello all. Thanks for the great info on this site. I am working on a script for automatic text formatting in Quark. Using example scripts and documentation, it is going pretty good so far. The problem I am having is that I need to delete the text “(AP)” How do I get Applescript to ignore the parenthesis in the quotes and search for it as text? Thanks!

#2

Hi,

if the parentheses are always the first and last character of the string,
one possible solution is:

set a to text 2 thru -2 of "(AP)" --> "AP"

if not, check it additionally

set theText to "(AP)"
if theText begins with "(" and theText ends with ")" then
	set a to text 2 thru -2 of "(AP)" --> "AP"
end if
#3

I am using this:

tell paragraph 2
set a to text 2 thru -2 of “(AP)”
delete (every word where it is a)
end tell

and it is deleting AP and leaving the parenthesis. I want to delete this —> (AP)

Thank you for helping me.

#4

word does not include punctuation. It’s usually not a very good way of doing things.

I don’t have Quark, but you can try something like this: (You need to make sure that paragraph 2 is properly referenced.)

set ASTID to AppleScript's text item delimiters
try
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {"(AP)"}
	set temp to text items of paragraph 2
	
	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to {""}
	set paragraph 2 to "" & temp
end try
set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ASTID
#5

It was “word” that was the problem. Using “text” fixed it. I thought the () characters were the issue. Thank you!

tell paragraph 4
delete (every text where it is " (AP)")
end tell