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I would like to know if it is possible to have textpad highlight all words that start with the same two letters. I am currently working with a new CAD/CAM system. They have a great macro program in it but now editor. I was hoping to get textpad to work with it much like it works with AutoLisp.

Thanks For any input.

TextPad does not allow multiple selections. And you cannot easily color or bold those choices. And I don't think you can make keywords for the syntax file that uses wildcards or RegEx.
But let me offer 3 options: 1-Mark all lines, 2-use a word processor and macro program, 3-treat as an HTML document.
Note: Using underscore "_" in following examples to represent space character for display purposes.
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Option 1- Mark all lines

Go to beginning of document.
Open Find window.
Find using RegEX for "space, LETTER_A, LETTER_B, one_or_more_of_any alpha-numberic_characters.:_AB[a-zA-Z0-9]+
Click on Mark All.
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Option 2 - Word processor and macro program

If you could make bold or color, you could do the following:
Make a macro to do the following:

Make a hot key to Select Word
Go to beginning of document.
Find using RegEX for "space, LETTER_A, LETTER_B, one_or_more_of_any alpha-numberic_characters.:_AB[a-zA-Z0-9]+Close Find window and go to that word on the document.
Press left arrow, right arrow to start at beginning of word.
Press SelectWord hot key
Apply color/font as desired.
Repeat macro to end of file.
- - - - - - - - - -
Even if you could bold/color, you would have trouble saving with those enhancements.

I would probably use a tool like Macro Scheduler to copy the text to a word processor document that allows formatting and then perform the same steps as noted above in the second option that uses another program with formatting.

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Option 3 - Treat as HTML document.
The best method might be to treat the document as HTML and add HTML code by doing a search and replace like this:

Search for:_(AB[a-zA-Z0-9]+)
Replace with: _<b>\1</b>

Now save it as an HTML document to retain bold formatting.

instead of a space at the start of the Regex, I'd use \< which denotes the start of a word.

Advantage: words beginning at the start of line or immediately after punctuation are found, not only those with a space before them.

Good catch MudGuard.
So new expressions, with a few more characters for words, are:

Search for:
(\<AB[a-zA-Z0-9'-_]+)
Replace with:
<b>\1</b>
Note that this underscore "_" is real, not for a space character.

Explanation of RegEx expressions:
RegEx Search expression:
(.....................= beginning of first tagged expression
\<..................= beginning of word
AB................. = AB
[a-zA-Z0-9'-_]..... = any alpha-numeric character or apostrophe, hyphen, underscore (other characters can be added)
+...................= one or more of previous term
)................... = end of first tagged expression

RegEx Replace expression:
<b>.............= HTML code for starting BOLD
\1................= first tagged expression
</b>...........= HTML code to end BOLD

And save as HTML.

Do this too:

Search for:
\n

Replace with:
<br>\n

Otherwise, everything is on one line.