diff --git a/electrum/gui/qt/console.py b/electrum/gui/qt/console.py
index 0104147e9..0f0141ac1 100644
--- a/electrum/gui/qt/console.py
+++ b/electrum/gui/qt/console.py
@@ -304,7 +304,8 @@ class Console(QtWidgets.QPlainTextEdit):
 
     def completions(self):
         cmd = self.getCommand()
-        lastword = re.split(' |\(|\)',cmd)[-1]
+        # note for regex: new words start after ' ' or '(' or ')'
+        lastword = re.split(r'[ ()]', cmd)[-1]
         beginning = cmd[0:-len(lastword)]
 
         path = lastword.split('.')
diff --git a/electrum/gui/qt/paytoedit.py b/electrum/gui/qt/paytoedit.py
index 2d298b867..361eca752 100644
--- a/electrum/gui/qt/paytoedit.py
+++ b/electrum/gui/qt/paytoedit.py
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@ from .qrtextedit import ScanQRTextEdit
 from .completion_text_edit import CompletionTextEdit
 from . import util
 
-RE_ALIAS = '(.*?)\s*\<([0-9A-Za-z]{1,})\>'
+RE_ALIAS = r'(.*?)\s*\<([0-9A-Za-z]{1,})\>'
 
 frozen_style = "QWidget { background-color:none; border:none;}"
 normal_style = "QPlainTextEdit { }"