How to remove everything before and after a specific character in Notepad++

In this article, we will discuss how to remove everything before and after a specific character in Notepad++. Notepad++ Download

Removing text before a specific character

Open the file in Notepad++.
Go to the Search menu and select Replace.
In the opened window, check the Regular expression option.
In the Find field, enter a regular expression to find text before a specific character. For example, to remove everything before the colon (:), use the expression:
```
.*?:
```
Leave the Replace with field empty.
Click Replace All to remove all text before the colon throughout the document.

Steps to remove text after a specific character

Open the file in Notepad++.
Go to the Search menu and select Replace.
In the opened window, check the Regular expression option.
In the Find field, enter a regular expression to find text after a specific character. For example, to remove everything after the colon (:), use the expression:
```
:.*
```
Leave the Replace with field empty.
Click Replace All to remove all text after the colon throughout the document.

Examples of using regular expressions

Here are some examples of expressions that may be useful:

Remove everything before a period (.) in all lines:
```
.*?\.
```
Remove everything after a comma (,) in all lines:
```
,.*
```
Remove everything before a hash (#) in all lines:
```
.*?#
```
Remove everything after an exclamation mark (!) in all lines:
```
!.*
```

Using regular expressions in Notepad++ allows you to quickly remove text before or after specific characters. This feature can be especially useful when processing large amounts of data or text files. Experiment with regular expressions to find the best solutions for your tasks.