Autoformat paragraph line end removal no longer working

[Michael JB]

Hi. Word 2000 XP SP2. I download text files ( books from Gutenberg) that
always contain paragraph signs at the end of each line.
In the past I have just run autoformat and these have been removed - as in
para 3 of "cleaning up text pasted from the Web" - and this is enough to
clean up the text for subsequent line justification and reading.
For some reason this no longer works.
I have re-installed Word 2000 on a Vista Premium laptop but same result.
I know I could use find/replace but this is obviously much more time
consuming.
Any suggestions much appreciated

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This suggests that (a) your AutoFormat settings have changed, (b) the text
files you're downloading have changed, or (c) some Office Update has changed
something (which would explain (a)).

The only possibility you can really do anything about is (a); have a look at
the settings and see if there is anything that might explain the difference
(my settings in Word 2003 have a reference to "Plain text WordMail
documents" that might be relevant).

 

[Michael JB]

Thanks Suzanne - the "plain text .. " option is there in W2000 and I have
tried it with both off and on.
The ref to "cleaning up text pasted from the web" does actually say that
this operation, clearing line end para marks within a para, works
irrespective of any autoformat / autocorrect settings.
The download formats from Gutenberg remain unchanged from before.
I have checked replace using both ^p and ^13 - both find line end marks and
true para marks.
Any other suggestion much appreciated - otherwise perhaps just another Word
mystery.
Thanks again
Michael


--
Michael

This suggests that (a) your AutoFormat settings have changed, (b) the text
files you're downloading have changed, or (c) some Office Update has changed
something (which would explain (a)).

The only possibility you can really do anything about is (a); have a look at
the settings and see if there is anything that might explain the difference
(my settings in Word 2003 have a reference to "Plain text WordMail
documents" that might be relevant).

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

IIRC, the article does also say that the AutoFormat route is iffy. Sometimes
it works, other times not. I think I've never had any real expectation that
it would and just regarded it as a blessing when it did. In this case,
you're not blessed. As you say, "just another Word mystery."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Thanks Suzanne - the "plain text .. " option is there in W2000 and I have
tried it with both off and on.
The ref to "cleaning up text pasted from the web" does actually say that
this operation, clearing line end para marks within a para, works
irrespective of any autoformat / autocorrect settings.
The download formats from Gutenberg remain unchanged from before.
I have checked replace using both ^p and ^13 - both find line end marks
and
true para marks.
Any other suggestion much appreciated - otherwise perhaps just another
Word
mystery.
Thanks again
Michael

 

[Michael JB]

Thanks again Suzanne.
I will close the thread - tried again re-installing but same result - also
tried with Word 7 ( I have a 30 day tester with a new laptop ) and it doesn't
work with that either - I know that autoformat is different in W7.
Thanks again for your prompt and helpful response

 

[Michael JB]

Thanks Terry - it picks up both ^p and ^13 - unfortunately there are only
singles at any line/para end, so a replace pass just makes it into one long
document !
Will keep looking - thanks again

 

[Terry Farrell]

The solution is to use a slightly different approach. If this is (badly)
formatted as usual with double para breaks at the end of a real paragraph
and single para breaks at the end of every line, you need to preserve the
doubles.

So the first pass you should find ^p^p and replace with a memorable but
nonsense combination of letters such DFGH.
The on the next pass find ^p and replace with nothing (or a space if
needed).
On the final pass, search for the DFGH and replace with ^p (or ^p^p if you
are not using a style with Space After set).

Terry

Thanks Terry - it picks up both ^p and ^13 - unfortunately there are only
singles at any line/para end, so a replace pass just makes it into one
long
document !
Will keep looking - thanks again

 

[Michael JB]

Thanks Terry
I explained things badly - unfortunately the text only has single para marks
at the end of the lines, and at the end of the genuine paragraph, and on all
the spacer lines, so there is nothing to distinguish between them - as there
are no doubles I can't just get rid of the singles, and turn the doubles into
singles - I can only deal with singles, and obviously any find/replace
changes them ALL, both the line ends that I actually want to change, and the
true para ends that I need to keep, and the spacer lines between paragraphs.
As the downloaded text is of books that I want to read personally, I can
just about live with the badly formatted result - as autoformat previously
got rid of the unwanted line ends in a single pass this was worth doing, but
if this no longer works I will just have to accept this.
Many thanks for your help.
One last thing - is there a ^something that equates to the space dot between
words that could be used in find/replace ?
Thanks again


Cheers

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

To find spaces, just type one or more spaces into the "Find what" box. Or
you can use the ^w code, which will find any number of spaces. This is
useful if you want to find multiple spaces and replace with a single one.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

Thanks Terry
I explained things badly - unfortunately the text only has single para
marks
at the end of the lines, and at the end of the genuine paragraph, and on
all
the spacer lines, so there is nothing to distinguish between them - as
there
are no doubles I can't just get rid of the singles, and turn the doubles
into
singles - I can only deal with singles, and obviously any find/replace
changes them ALL, both the line ends that I actually want to change, and
the
true para ends that I need to keep, and the spacer lines between
paragraphs.
As the downloaded text is of books that I want to read personally, I can
just about live with the badly formatted result - as autoformat previously
got rid of the unwanted line ends in a single pass this was worth doing,
but
if this no longer works I will just have to accept this.
Many thanks for your help.
One last thing - is there a ^something that equates to the space dot
between
words that could be used in find/replace ?
Thanks again


Cheers

 

[Terry Farrell]

Last question first...

AFAIAA, the feint dot representing the character space is not a non-printing
character in the same way as the Tab arrow or the paragraph pilcrow, so
cannot be searched.

Going back to the three clean tidy up: at the first step you can search for
the .^p (stop+paragraph mark) - which should only occur at the end of a
paragraph - instead of ^p^p and replace with the code. Then the three pass
clean up will work.

Terry

 

[Michael JB]

Many thanks Suzanne
--
Michael

To find spaces, just type one or more spaces into the "Find what" box. Or
you can use the ^w code, which will find any number of spaces. This is
useful if you want to find multiple spaces and replace with a single one.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Oops. Suzanne is correct. For some weird reason I read space between
characters instead of words. Yes, just use a space for a single space, two
spaces to find 2 spaces, 3 for three spaces or ^w for an indeterminate
string of spaces. etc.

Terry

 

[Michael JB]

Thanks Terry - that's a really clever way of identifying and replacing the
symbols - much appreciated.

 

[Michael JB]

Thanks again - both yourself and Suzanne - I have learned a lot of useful
stuff.
Much appreciated again.

 

[Michael JB]

Hi again both - I have cracked the problem - purely by chance I think.
I re-formatted some saved downloaded text and re-ran autoformat and it
worked - all line end para marks disappeared.
It appears that the text downloaded ( although shown as formatted Plain Text
) actually comes in as HTML preformatted - as displayed in the "style"
taskbar field. . Select all - change style to Normal - and then autoformat
works.
It is some time since I actually worked with the downloaded files, and I
suspect that when I was doing it previosuly I could well have done the
changes in style and fonts plus justification BEFORE autoformat.
Anyway - at least it clarifies my problem - it doesn't seem to have happened
to anyone else but at least we 3 know about it !
Thanks again
--
Michael

Thanks again - both yourself and Suzanne - I have learned a lot of useful
stuff.
Much appreciated again.

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Thanks for the feedback. Webby stuff does seem more and more likely to
intrude on Word documents these days.