GREP solution last word?

[Mike Witherell]

Hi Gang,

How would you make a GREP to find the last word in the paragraph in order to italicize it?

Best,

Mike in Washington DC

[Peter Kahrel · Accepted solution]

[-\w]+[[:punct:]]+?$

i.e. string of word characters or hyphen, maybe followed by punctuation, at the end of a paragraph ($)

Or [-\w]+(?=[[:punct:]]+?$) if you want to capture just the word, not the end punctuation.

Peter

[Mike Witherell]

Thanks Peter:

It works! Mostly. It does not like the final paragraph, though, which closes with a double quote.

Tell me, Peter, what does the initial - sign mean?

[Mike Witherell]

Your second version covers everything nicely! This is based on a question from a student in my classroom today. Thanks for the help!

[Peter Kahrel]

[-\w] stands for 'hyphen or word character'.

[Mike Witherell]

Peter, many thanks again. The addition of the hyphen sounds like the decision of an experienced one!

[Obi-wan Kenobi]

Hi Peter,

Another approaches:

\H+[-\w]+\W*?$ (Green)

[-\w]+(?=\W*?$)  (Orange)

These codes "seem" to catch the "last word" taking in account its context (before/after, except space, taken or not taken)!

(^/)