Designate semicolons as only permitted in cross-references?

Question

In our project, semicolons are permitted as separators between cross-references, but not in any kind of text. Is there any way to handle this using the Paratext inventories, or do we just have to locate and remove rogue semicolons using Find?

Answer 1

If you are using 9.5 then you can set the inventory to say that a semicolon is valid in non-verse text (like a footnote), but not valid in the verse text. This is done by Inventory > Menu > Set verse and non-verse status separately. This will open two columns where you can say that a character is valid in one context and not valid in the other.

Another way to try and handle this would be to search for rogue semicolons with a regular expression. You could search for the following:

regex:\p{L};

This says look for a semicolon following a letter.

or you could be more inclusive and look for any place where a semicolon follows something that is not a number:

regex:\D;

Comments

Thanks, the inventory option was exactly what I was looking for. It would be helpful if that option between verse text / non verse text displayed as the default rather than being hidden away in a menu.