How to search and replace paragraph breaks?

sasquatchjimmy · February 19, 2024, 11:42pm

Id like to be able to search+replace paragraph breaks. Here is a photo of the problem.

Id add another photo but new users arent allowed to. I’m trying to make the text flow smoothly where there is no break between “Jelly” and “Bean”. Ive been manually fixing this problem, but with hundreds to thousands of pages per week, it gets old.

I’m grateful for any advice. I’m also curious as to whether you can search for both a paragraph break AND punctuation. e.g., search for an exclamation point followed by a paragraph break – all in one search, not multiple searches.

EarnestAl · February 20, 2024, 1:34am

Generally, it is better to add a sample file than a screenshot, click up-pointing icon (tooltip Upload) to upload a file.

Click Edit > Find and Replace. In the dialogue:

Tick the box Regular Expressions
In Find enter $, see List of Regular Expressions
in Replace enter a space
click Find Next button and click Replace button if found return needs replacing. If all need replacing then click Replace All

To find end of sentence marks with a view to restoring them as paragraphs later use a token that isn’t in the text, e.g. ①

In Find enter (!|\?|.)$
In Replace enter $1①
Replace all paragraphs with a space as above
In Find enter ① (circled 1followed by space)
In Replace enter \n