DiGrande.it

Blind, Braille and Embossing Technologies

This site uses cookies to personalize content and ads, provide social media features and analyze links. By closing this banner or continuing to browse, you consent to their use.
Read the DiGrande.it Cookie Policy

The special activator to input any character.

In the fields of the Find and Replace window - and in any other text input field - you can use the Special Character "^". This Character is a special marker or activator that tells Biblos to interpret the characters following it differently.

The "^" activator can precede a sequence of numbers that will be transformed into its corresponding Unicode code, it can precede a wildcard representing a group of characters (only for Find and Replace fields), or it can precede another character called "terminator".

A numeric sequence is indicated by "^N" where N is the variable replaceable with a number from 0 to about 1 million (the Unicode set with 21 bits). For example, if you search for the string "b^105blos," the word "Biblos" will be searched because the Unicode code 105 corresponds to the vowel "i." Similarly, if you search for the string "^65^66^67," the string "ABC" will be searched. To know the numeric value of Unicode symbols, you can use the Character Type window (Format/Character menu...), where a list shows the Unicode symbols of the chosen Character Type.

The "^" activator can also precede a wildcard. Wildcard characters tell Biblos to search for characters belonging to a specific group, such as letters, numbers, punctuation, etc. The Wildcards or Characters wildcard topic is available in a previous or subsequent chapter of this manual.

The last case in which the "^" activator is used is as a special terminator, which follows a numeric sequence, ending it. When using the activator with a numeric sequence, the numbers following the activator are interpreted and transformed into their corresponding Unicode code. As seen in the previous example, searching for the Unicode Character value "^105" simply searches for the lowercase vowel "i". If there is a need to add a numeric character, such as "0," after the numeric sequence, it would be incorrect to add "0" immediately after the numeric sequence, as it would simply search for "^1050," which is Unicode code 1050. In these cases, you can proceed in two ways:

- Specifying another numeric sequence, indicating the value of the numeric character 0: "^105^48".

- Using the Special Terminator "^/": "^105^/0".

The activator poses one last problem: what if you want to search for the character "^" itself? There are two solutions:

- Search for the Unicode code of the activator (94): "^94".

- Specify the activator character twice: "^".

For example, if you enter the string “^^Biblos^^”, the string being searched for is "^Biblos^". The same result is obtained by searching "^94Biblos^94".