TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
> Richard Combs wrote:
> > Just remember to run it multiple times in case there are instances of three, four, or more spaces. Run it until Words tells you the Find string wasn't found.
>
>
> In fact, this is what occasioned the question. In sed I can do all that in one command, with something like
>
> sed s/' \{2,9\}/ '/g
>
> which will take out anything from 2 up to 9 spaces (9 is arbitrary - I just figure I'm not going to find more than that, but I could make that final number anything up t o 255).
>
> What I was wondering was which was the least work : convert all the word files into plain text, run them through sed, put them back into Word OR could I do it all in Word with an already existing macro?
In fact, Word supports a subset of regular expressions in it's Find function, so you *can* do this in one step. In the Find and Replace (Advanced Find) dialog, first select the "Use wildcards" option. Then, in the "Find what" box, type a single space followed by {2,9}, and in the "Replace with" box type a single space. Click Replace All, and you're all done.
-Fred Ridder
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
EPUB Webinar: Join STC Vice President Nicky Bleiel as she discusses tips for creating EPUB, the file format used for e-readers, tablets, smartphones, and more.
