In the current version of Word, how can I remove extra line breaks?
Cutting and pasting a large text file of poetry that has manual double spacing, and I want to eliminate the double spacing (while still having line breaks, but single) in order to keep from having double the page length necessary.
I mean, obviously, I know I can just go through and delete them individually, but that would take forever. I want to do something like “replace” that does it in a single task.
Just use replace
Search for the string “^p^p” and replace it with “^p”.
You can always highlight one of the double line breaks and copy and paste it into the find/replace boxes, that way you won’t always have to remember the code.
I’d tried that, without success.
Hmm. That’s the answer. Click the ‘reveal codes’ button:
and check if there’s something like a space between the lines breaks, which would make the replace operation fail. If that’s it, adjust your pattern match accordingly.
This strikes a chord with a problem Redwolf was having a few years back. It was different versions of Word that cause a problem for her.
A “Find and replace all” is the sort of thing I would do in Unix (vi).
In Word, I would highlight the paragraphs in question and do a “format paragraph” making sure I was formating it to single-spacing, not double spacing. I’ve been doing that recently without any trouble.
In Word 2007, things work differently, if that’s what you’re using.
Do Control-A to select all of the document, then at the top of the screen (the “Ribbon”), look for the “Styles” section and select the second large button from the left (“NoSpacing”) instead of “Normal,” which actually has the extra spacing between paragraphs.
Of course, this only applies to Word 2007.
–James
Walden, yes, see if you can turn on formatting markings (as S1m0n said), so that you can see the paragraph marks. If you can see them, you’ll be able to tell if there are two after each paragraph or one. If two, you can search and replace. If one, you can just adjust the space between paragraphs.
As previously mentioned, Word 2007 doesn’t actually put in a blank line after paragraphs . . . it just makes the space under the last line thicker. A line is a certain depth, and there is more depth after a paragraph. So, if you’re seeing more white between paragraphs, you can adjust it using the method above.
On a typewriter, one used to have to make a carriage return at the end of every line and twice at the end of a paragraph. With the advent of lines that wrapped automatically, one only had to do the two returns at the end of a paragraph . . . once to end the paragraph and one to insert some blank space. With Word 2007, one only has to return once in order to cue the end of paragraph AND insert the blank space.
There is a good reason for doing it this way . . . it allows one to adjust the space between paragraphs all at once rather than after each paragraph.
Word 2007 also handles automatic numbering and lists much more easily! It’s a delight.
[The remainder of this post is in small print because I’m whispering. ]
I mention this because our administrator just sent me a scathing email about the extreme inconvenience and waste of time I put her to when I failed to format a document correctly and she had to fix it. The numbering scheme wasn’t correct and the left indents were not at the correct location. In my defense, I knew they would need to be fixed, but fixing them was a simple matter of redefining level 1 to be “1.,” level 2 to be “a.,” level 3 to be “(1),” etc., and telling it where to put the indentations for each. Once would do for the whole 36 page production.
It hadn’t occurred to me that she would not know this, since she alone got to take the Word 2007 class. Nor had it occurred to me that she would not have come to me and asked if I knew how to fix it, or that she would have attempted to fix a document clearly marked “DRAFT – What do you think so far? I’m still working on this.”
But, neither of those thoughts occurred to me and she did attempt to fix it . . . apparently by turning off auto-everything on a fresh, new document and cutting and pasting or (!!) retyping the entire thing, typing in each 1., 2., a., b., and (1) at the beginning of each line. Just like on a typewriter.
At least it gave her something to do.
And now you can see why I’m not considered management material. I just don’t think far enough ahead.
Lamby,
In our office - a small subsidiary office of a large company - we’ve reached the conclusion that people do not read anything beyond the first line of your email. Certainly the managers don’t. And if you put “FYI” at the top, make sure you put it in 76 point, and red.
All I wanna know is what happened after WordPerfect 5.1. They all suck, but I have to use Word becuse everyone else does. Time for Adobe products to shine again!
At work, we upgraded our version of Word this year. We now have the version with the “ribbon” instead of the “toolbar.” I would like to thank the brilliant person who came up with the way to suck up 25% of my viewing screen with a phat toolbar. I was relieved to finally see how to build my own customized toolbar.
I missed WordPerfect 5.1 but I thought 6.1 rocked!
Search and Replace ^m with nothing. Or to be safe, replace it with ^p and then make all ^p^p into ^p.
That’s how you get rid of manual page breaks. I don’t know how to get rid of auto page breaks, it might be ^12.
The fact that people are suggesting elaborate formatting fixes and that it took me several tries to find ^m on the Internet is yet more proof of what a suckful program Word remains to this day.
I normally use Open Office, but I was on a different computer.
Did you sort it out to your satisfaction, Walden?
TELL ME HOW! NOW! DO YOU HEAR ME??? TELL ME HOW!
The OS on my home system is Windows 7.
The word processor of choice is WordStar. 
I just finished setting it up as an “XP mode” app so that it’ll run in a VM.
In my opinion, the best Word was Word 2003, and the new interface in 2007 is a definite step backwards, and also needs a larger monitor than 2003 to present you with basically the same choices–which is probably one of the driving factors in the new interface, truth be known.
–James
Do an internet search on WordPerfect Free Download. You can get your own free copy of WP 5.1!