join multiple paragraphs - Word 2007

[Philip]

Using Word 2007

How can I join (combine) multiple paragraphs into a single paragraph -
preferably with a key board sequence?

I have some text documents with line breaks at the end of lines and double
line breaks at the end of paragraphs. I want to flow the paragraphs
"normally" and save the results in a docx file.

I realise I can delete the individual line break (end of paragraph
sequence), but that's very slow. The documents I'm dealing with are hundreds
of A4 pages long (text is Arial 10.5).

TIA

 

[garfield-n-odie [MVP]]

See http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm .

 

[Philip]

That doesnt seem to help - I highlight what I want as a paragraph (ie all the
lines (terminated with cr/lf sequences) that I want to gather ínto a single
paragraph) and then what?

The reference you gave seems to imply that the mere act of highlighting a
block of text will somehow result in all the extraneous "pilcrows" being
automagically removed - that's not happening.

 

[DeanH]

Did you actually read the reference?
It clearly shows how to use the Find/Replace function to clean up the text
(selected or not). Have another read, once you do this it is very simple and
works very well.
All the best
DeanH

 

[Philip]

I tried the Find & Replace options, but they did not want to work for me.

I used an another editor (Notepad++) to change the single 0xD, 0xA sequences
to 0x20 (space) - that has put the data into a state where its more amenable
for processing with Word 2007.

The text originates from a Gutenburg download, not a web page

I'm sure I used to be able to do this in the old Word for DOS with a couple
of Alt keystrokes - never mind its fixed now and I've saved it as a macro in
NP++.

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Assuming your lines ended in either line breaks or paragraph breaks (or the
hybrids that can be reached with ^013), the techniques in the article should
have worked for you.

And it's "Gutenberg."

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org

 

[Philip]

In the original text, lines end with - 0x0D 0x0A (CR, LF) and paras end with
- 0x0D 0x0A 0x0D 0x0A(CR, LF, CR, LF). So in Notepad++ I did this

replaced all 0x0D0x0A0x0D0x0A's with 0x1E (Unit Separator),
replaced all 0x0D0x0A's with 0x20 (Space),
replaced all 0x1E's with 0x0D0x0A0x0D0x0A

That resulted in something that was more amenable to processing & formatting
in Word. I probably could have done that in Word, just that I could not see
how.

If Word had a way of displaying text as a byte stream, then when someone was
editing at the byte level they'd be able see the actual bytes, rather than a
unicode representation thereof; so rather than having two bytes containing
000 1101 000 1010 being shown as a pilcrow (¶), they'd be shown as ââŠ

Thanks

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

But the Replace operation described works perfectly well regardless of how
line breaks and paragraph breaks are displayed and is certainly simpler than
editing in a text editor. What you're describing is a paragraph break at the
end of every line and two at the end of every paragraph. It is quite simple
to replace those with line breaks, replace two line breaks with a paragraph
break, and then remove the line breaks.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA
http://word.mvps.org