Use the Regular Expression Option to Find Non-ASCII Characters

Use the Regular Expression Option to Find Non-ASCII Characters

If you're exporting your transcript to ASCII for use in final production software, you'll need to ensure there are no special characters in the transcript. Any non-ASCII characters will display as a character code in ASCII files if you include them. Fortunately, AutoScript Desktop has a feature that can help with that.

Turn on Find's Regular Expression Option

The first step is to open a job in ASD, and then use the default hotkey [Ctrl]+[F] or click the [Find] button on the home tab to open the Find tool. Then, from the down-facing arrow next to the Find text box, click to check "Regular expression".

Enter this code in the Find box:  [^\x00-\x7F]


Most likely you have used non-breaking hyphens, sticky-spaces, etc. You will need to replace those characters with standard hyphens, standard spaces, etc.

If you'd like to learn more about using regular expressions, feel free to reach out to our support team using the Request Help link above. They are a powerful feature available to you in AutoScript Desktop. Let us help you make the most of that feature.