How can I add a letter prefix to all cells in a column?

[tylerm2734255]

I have pages of existing InDesign (CS4) tables, filled with part numbers. We now need to add a single, constant letter prefix to each part number in a column. For example, right now a part number might be 220731 but I need to make it L220731. I need to do this for all items in the column, and I would like to be able to do it automatically. I already tried highlighting the column, and doing a replace based upon "replace *" with L* and that did not work.

Any thoughts?

[John Mensinger · Accepted solution]

Using your example of the "L" prefix...

1. Select the column
2. Launch the Find/Change dialog and choose the GREP tab
3. Find what: ^.+?
4. Change to: L$0
5. Search: Selection
6. Click Change All

[tylerm2734255]

Thanks so much John, this does exactly what I want. Saves me a lot of time.

[amaarora]

Hi,

What do you mean by part numbers?

I am not so good with grep, but trying this simple query helped me achieve what i could make out from your question.

I selected the portion of the table and then ran the grep ONLY on the selection.

This is what I get then by hitting on "Change All"..

Just to add, since it is not clear how the numbers are or what part numbers mean it is not clear what is the desired result.

Running John's grep gives me somewhat different result than mine since it even converts words other than numbers to Lwords.

-Aman