A character class including A-Z, 1-9, and accented characters: [A-Z1-9\300-\377]. To invert that, you would use the ^ of course... I'm not sure about including beginnings and endings of lines, though.

I don't know what documentation you're using, but there is the php help: http://us4.php.net/manual/en/pcre.pattern.syntax.php

When you do manage to get a regular expression test working the way you want it, I would recommend generating a script file with an on text event for each pattern you are searching for. This should help the speed.