Finding every third line that doesn't begin with Todd Easton

Todd Easton

First off, I’m a Notepad++ newbie. I did try to figure this out, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

I have many Zoom meeting transcripts. I’d like to go through them and see who besides me talked and what they said. I’ve pasted in three “records” from a transcript. The pasted-in material is between the asterisks.

Is there a way to use one of the commands on the Search menu to find the “third lines” that begin with a name different from my name (Todd Easton).

Thanks, Todd

15
00:02:17.760 --> 00:02:22.980
Todd Easton: Talk about talk more about what’s behind the demand curve.

16
00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:40.590
Todd Easton: Up to now we’ve focused on substitution we focused on the idea that, if the price of a product goes up I may buy less of it because i’ll pivot to a substitute if the price of.

17
00:02:42.540 --> 00:02:52.530
Todd Easton: My favorite chocolate bar goes up right maybe I buy a different chocolate bar maybe I buy a granola bar or something if i’m really desperate right.

Todd Easton

@Todd-Easton Oh, it looks like the asterisks don’t show. They were immediately before 15 and immediately after “desperate right.”

guy038

Hello, @todd-easton and All,

Considering your text, I suppose that this regex expression should work :

SEARCH/MARK (?-si)^(?=\u)(?!Todd Easton).+?(?=:)

Notes :

This regex searches, from beginning of line ( ^ ), the shortest non-empty range of standard characters ( (?-s).+? ) which is followed by a colon ( (?=:) ), and which begins with an uppercase letter ( (?-i)(?=\u) ) and does not begin with the string Todd Easton, with that case ( (?-i)(?!Todd Easton) ) => So, it selects any complete name, different from Todd Easton
You can bookmark all the lines containing a match, ticking the Bookmark line option in the Mark dialog ( Ctrl + M ) for further process in the Search > Bookmark dialog or when right-clicking on the Bookmark margin
You can also copy all these lines by clicking on the Copy Marked Text button and pasting the results in a new tab ( Ctrl+ N )

Best Regards,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

@Todd-Easton

So, I think you might try this Find what expression:

^\d+\R\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d{3}\h-->\h\d{2}:\d{2}:\d{2}\.\d{3}\R\K(?!Todd Easton)(?-s).+

and use Regular expression Search mode.

It looks complicated, but it really isn’t.

If you have success with it, and you want an explanation of how it works, let us know.

@guy038 and I had different approaches. I maybe had more “fun” with mine (and perhaps made mine more restrictive for matching your data).

guy038

Hi, @todd-easton and All,

I read your post too quickly !. Indeed, you said :

Is there a way to use one of the commands on the Search menu to find the “third lines” that begin with a name different from my name (Todd Easton).

SEARCH/MARK (?-si)^(.+\R){2}(?=\u)(?!Todd Easton).+\R

Notes :

This new version first searches for two complete lines ( (?-s)^(.+\R){2} ), followed by a third complete line ( (?-s).+\R ) which begins with an uppercase letter ( (?-i)(?=\u) ) and does not begin with the string Todd Easton, with this exact case ( (?-i)(?!Todd Easton) )

BR

guy038

Todd Easton

Thanks guy038 and Alan Kilborn for your quick assistance!

guy038’s first method seems to work great. I’m using his expression with Mark All and then skipping from student to student in the transcript using F2.

This is much more fun than a visual search for student names!