I have a Word document, in which some lines have leading blanks. I would like to change every two leading blanks to a tab characte. How could I do that?
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by: Galisteo8Posted on 2006-05-15 at 20:57:01ID: 16687517
Hi, jc31415,
Leading blanks are distinguishable from regular blanks by the fact that they are immeidately preceded by a paragraph mark or a line break. In the Find and Replace dialog box, these are typed as ^p and ^l, respectively.
So, if there are a set number of leading blanks (say, 8) and your lines are separated by paragraph marks, then go to Edit > Replace (or press Ctrl+H) to open the Find and Replace dialog box. In the 'Find What' field, type ^p followed by 8 spaces, and in the 'Replace With' field, type ^p^t^t^t^t . (^t is how you represent a tab character in the field). Click the Replace All button.
However, if the leading spaces vary in number on each line, you can do the following:
1)
Find What: ^p followed by 2 spaces
Replace With: ^p^t
Click the Replace All button.
2)
Find What: ^t followed by 2 spaces
Replace With: ^t^t
Click the Replace All button.
Repeat step 2 until Word indicates no more instances are being found.
hth,
Galisteo8