I have a document with a many looks like look something like:
[9/22/17 10:46 AM] xxxxxxxx: llllllllllllllllllll
[9/22/17 10:46 AM] Cc: cccccccccc
[9/22/17 10:46 AM] Me: bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
[9/22/17 10:46 AM] Ccc: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I am trying to select the range from [ to : and replace it with a blank. I know I have to use wildcards and ignore white space in word but I can't seem to get the range correct. I searched around but can't seem to find exactly what I need.
You’re confusing yourself my misusing the word “range”.
[0-9] is a range matching every digit (in “Arabic” numerals),
[aeiou] is a range matching every vowel.
Those aren’t what you want.
If you want to match everything through the last colon on the line,
that might be tricky.
But if you are always searching for everything through the second colon
(i.e., plowing through the one that’s part of the time), use \[*:*:.
The \ causes the [ (i.e., \[) to be treated as an ordinary character,
and not the beginning of a range.
Then match everything (*) through a colon,
and then everything through a colon again.
I realized the reason why [*: was not working was because [ is a wildcard character and I had to put a \ in front of it.
