Re: Eliminating .txt file hard returns

Subject: Re: Eliminating .txt file hard returns
From: John David Hickey <jdavid -at- FARABI -dot- COM>
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 16:10:18 -0400

Greetings!

> A colleague of mine downloaded an important reference document from the
> Internet. This document arrived as a .txt file containing hundreds (at
> least) superfluous hard returns. Currently the document is 555 pages
> long. We figure it is actually about a third of that length without the
> extra returns. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to automatically
> remove these returns? To remove them manually could take years and cost
> thousands of lives.

I would suggest that you use Word to clean up the document of these extra
paragraph markers. Follow these steps:

1. Copy/Paste or Open the txt file in Word.
2. Select Options from the Tools menu and click the View tab.
3. Select the All checkbox in the Nonprinting characters panel. All of your
paragraph markers will appear in the Word document as well as the spaces.
4. Take a close look at the paragraph markers and try to establish a
pattern. Is it just one paragraph marker after another? Are there spaces
between each one? Are there extra spaces as well as paragraph markers? Let's
pretend that there are no spaces between the paragraph markers.
5. Select Replace from the Edit menu.
6. Place the cursor in the Find what: field.
7. Select Paragraph from the Special button.
8. Select Paragraph from the Special button again.
9. Place the cursor in the Replace with: field and select Paragraph from the
Special button. This replaces two paragraph markers with one.
10. Click Replace All.

This might take a couple of minutes for a 555 page document. When it's done,
you might want to run it again until Word says that no replacements were
done. When that happens, take a look at your doc and see what else needs to
be cleaned up.

Have fun!

--
Be seeing you,

Dave
---
John David Hickey (jdavid -at- farabi -dot- com)
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Hills/7829/

Lone Writer at Farabi Technology Corp. (Montreal, Quebec)

They say the pen is mighter than the sword.
But if you miss a deadline, you'd better bring the sword.
--
Do not confuse my opinons with my employer's.
Each exists in blissful ignorance of the other.
---

From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=




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