^

Beginning of input or line.

^T matches "T" in "This good earth" but not in "Uncle Tom’s Cabin"

$

End of input or line.

h$ matches "h" in "teach" but not in "teacher"

*

The preceding character 0 or more times.

um* matches "um" in "rum", "umm" in "yummy", and "u" in "huge"

+

The preceding character 1 or more times.

um+ matches "um" in "rum" and "umm" in "yummy" but nothing in "huge"

?

The preceding character at most once (that is, indicates that the preceding character is optional).

st?on matches "son" in "Johnson" and "ston" in "Johnston" but nothing in "Appleton" or "tension"

.

Any single character except newline.

.an matches "ran" and "can" in the phrase "bran muffins can be tasty"

x|y

Either x or y.

FF0000|0000FF matches "FF0000" in bgcolor="#FF0000" and "0000FF’" in font color="#0000FF"

{n}

Exactly n occurrences of the preceding character.

o{2} matches "oo" in "loom" and the first two o’s in "mooooo" but nothing in "money"

{n,m}

At least n, and at most m, occurrences of the preceding character.

F{2,4} matches "FF" in "#FF0000" and the first four F’s in #FFFFFF

[abc]

Any one of the characters enclosed in the brackets. Specify a range of characters with a hyphen (for example, [a-f] is equivalent to [abcdef]).

[e-g] matches "e" in "bed", "f" in "folly", and "g" in "guard"

[^abc]

Any character not enclosed in the brackets. Specify a range of characters with a hyphen (for example, [^a-f] is equivalent to [^abcdef]).

[^aeiou] initially matches "r" in "orange", "b" in "book", and "k" in "eek!"

\b

A word boundary (such as a space or carriage return).

\bb matches "b" in "book" but nothing in "goober" or "snob"

\B

Anything other than a word boundary.

\Bb matches "b" in "goober" but nothing in "book"

\d

Any digit character. Equivalent to [0-9].

\d matches "3" in "C3PO" and "2" in "apartment 2G"

\D

Any nondigit character. Equivalent to [^0-9].

\D matches "S" in "900S" and "Q" in "Q45"

\f

Form feed.

\n

Line feed.

\r

Carriage return.

\s

Any single white-space character, including space, tab, form feed, or line feed.

\sbook matches "book" in "blue book" but nothing in "notebook"

\S

Any single non-white-space character.

\Sbook matches "book" in "notebook" but nothing in "blue book"

\t

A tab.

\w

Any alphanumeric character, including underscore. Equivalent to [A-Za-z0-9_].

b\w* matches "barking" in "the barking dog" and both "big" and "black" in "the big black dog"

\W

Any non-alphanumeric character. Equivalent to [^A-Za-z0-9_].

\W matches "&" in "Jake&Mattie" and "%" in "100%"

Control+Enter or Shift+Enter (Windows), or Control+ Return or Shift+Return or Command+ Return (Macintosh)

Return character. Make sure that you deselect the Ignore Whitespace Differences option when searching for this, if not using regular expressions. Note that this matches a particular character, not the general notion of a line break; for instance, it doesn’t match a <br> tag or a <p> tag. Return characters appear as spaces in Design view, not as line breaks.