How do you delete a line-return

[Dee Randall]

On many cut-and-pasted paragraphs, there are wrap-around sentences that
have the formatting "line return" or "carriage return" designation or
symbol, which is either created by the writer’s margins, or the writer’s
Shift+enter creation.



No matter if one sets the margins to create a larger page, or if one reduces
the size of the font, the formatting designation/symbol remains. It is not
possible to put this linereturn/carriage return designatin/symbol into a
“Find and replace” in order to delete it so that one word will not be on a
single line.



Many, many years ago Atari ST had a program which formatted a document by
“selecting all” then selected reformat or “paragraph format.”



I have been using Word 6 years and to this date I have never found out how
to perform this operation.



Is it possible?

Thank you very much.

Dee

 

[garfield-n-odie]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm.

 

[Dee Randall]

See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm.

This works for me. Reading thru the FAQ at first glance, I couldn't
believe that the instructions would apply to what I wanted to do, but they
do. I will have to save this FAQ and/or commit it to memory. Many times I
copy information from newsgroups into Word, and it is very annoying (to me)
not only to see the document as having one word on a line, but to have a
document that sometimes is almost twice as long when I want to print it out.

What a shame that MS Word cannot add this line-return symbol to their "find
and replace" box for a "once thru" pass.

Thanks so much. You have eliminated a problem for me.
Dee

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

What a shame that MS Word cannot add this line-return symbol to their "find
and replace" box for a "once thru" pass.

Have you looked at what's available in Find and Replace by clicking on More,
then using the Special menu? You can search for line breaks and paragraph
marks.

 

[Dee Randall]

Have you looked at what's available in Find and Replace by clicking on More,
then using the Special menu? You can search for line breaks and paragraph
marks.

Dayo, I have done this, but if in the special menu I click "manual line
breaks, then my paragraphs are no longer there, so one would have to go
thru and find all the paragraph locations and put in a double space for the
paragraph, which is double-trouble.

Do you have any advice other than going thru twice as the FAQ says, in order
to keep the paragraphs in tact?

Thanks,
Dee

 

[Dee Randall]

Have you looked at what's available in Find and Replace by clicking on More,
then using the Special menu? You can search for line breaks and paragraph
marks.

Oh, my! The FAQ doesn't seem to work for paragraphs even though

"You will now have a paragraph break at the end of each true paragraph,"
as I tried it on a multiple paragraph document, it did not separate the
paragraphs.

 

[Doug Robbins]

Assuming that at the end of the paragraphs you have to ¶, you will first
need to to and edit replace to replace ^p^p with some unusual character
combination (such as @#) and then used Edit>Replace to replace ^p with a
space and then use it again to replace @# with ^p to restore the paragraphs.

--
Please respond to the Newsgroup for the benefit of others who may be
interested. Questions sent directly to me will only be answered on a paid
consulting basis.

Hope this helps,
Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Dayo, I have done this, but if in the special menu I click "manual line
breaks, then my paragraphs are no longer there, so one would have to go
thru and find all the paragraph locations and put in a double space for the
paragraph, which is double-trouble.

Do you have any advice other than going thru twice as the FAQ says, in order
to keep the paragraphs in tact?

No, I was just making the point that Word already has what you say you are
asking for. The problem isn't that you can't find and replace a "line-return
symbol"--the problem is that when Word pastes, it doesn't differentiate
between proper paragraphs and wrapped lines. Whether this is Word's
problem, or the problem of the program that Copies, I have no idea. However,
since I have seen a Rewrap Paragraph command in MS email programs, that
might be worth a feature request to (e-mail address removed), or post a
suggestion in the Communities interface.

Anyhow, more usefully, a double find and replace is a pretty simple macro to
record, if you do this often and want a one-click solution. See, if
necessary:

Creating a macro with no programming experience using the recorder
http://word.mvps.org/faqs/macrosvba/UsingRecorder.htm

DM

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

If you're dealing with email, the assumption is that there is a "blank line"
between paragraphs. When that is the case, then replacing two line breaks
with a paragraph break and then deleting the remaining (single) line breaks
will work. If you have text that does not have blank lines between
paragraphs, then you have to insert some special paragraph marker before
starting.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

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