'search expression is too complex' error when using wildcard search

Can you use this non-wildcard search?

^#^#-^#^#-^#^#-^#^#

Select allOpen in new window

For some reason, the Word wildcard search would rather have you indicate the repeated digits than have you double the [0-9] pattern.

<[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}-[0-9]{2}>

Select allOpen in new window

Hi aikimark,

thank you very much for your swift and professional help. Ok, great, this works just fine.

So, searching with wildcard characters is not possible in the above case, do I get his right?

And another question: As a matter of fact, I need to add -09 at the end to all numbers found, i.e.

Before: 77-88-23-44   After: 77-88-23-44-09
Before: 99-22-34-11   After: 99-22-34-11-09
Before: 33-24-72-53   After: 33-24-72-53-09

Help is much appreciated. Thank you very much in  advance.

Regards, Andreas

Hi akimark,

oh, great job, works like a charm. Thank you very much for it.  I highly appreciate it.

One more thing which I would like to draw your attention to:
If I replace all the numbers as you suggest with your search and replace action once, everything works out fine.
If I inadvertently repeated it, it would add the -99 once again.

Can't I resrict the search operation to just numbers with the following make-up ##-##-##-## (54-33-22-11), i.e. max of 4 pairs of two-digit numbers.
The current search term would also find numbers such as 54-33-22-11-09

Help is much appreciated. Thank you very much in advance.

Regards, Andreas

here the graphic that supports my question

You might look for a "not hyphen" character instead of ">"

Ah ok, great I got that, thank you very much for your great and professional help.

Thank you very much for your valuable help. Regards, Andreas