🚀 go-pugleaf

Peter,

thanks for your advice too.
That's right.

This is my code with Dave's approach and a portion of Peter's input:

 
// cleanUpBib.jsx

var mySubst = "�,\t"; 
app.findPreferences = app.changePreferences = null;

cleanUpBib (app.selection[0]);

function cleanUpBib(textRef) { 
   var myParas = textRef.paragraphs; 
   var curName = ""; 
   for (var j = myParas.length -1; j >= 0; j--) { 
      var bibName = getBibName(myParas[j]); 
      if (bibName) { 
         if ((bibName != curName) || (bibName == "")) { 
            curName = bibName; 
         } else { 
            clearBibName(myParas[j+1]); 
         } 
      } 
   } 
} 

function getBibName(thePara) { 
   if (theCommas = getCommas(thePara))  
      return thePara.parentStory.characters.itemByRange(thePara.characters[0], theCommas[1]).contents.join(); 
}

function clearBibName(thePara) { 
   if (theCommas = getCommas(thePara))  
      thePara.parentStory.characters.itemByRange(thePara.characters[0], theCommas[1]).contents = mySubst; 
}

function getCommas(thePara) { 
   var theCommas = thePara.search( ', ' ); 
   if (theCommas.length > 0) 
      return theCommas; 
} 




I didn't get success with my double loop approach yet.
And for the elaboration of Dave's approach works very well I will not spent more time to overwork my old moldered code. ;-)

Martin