removing end of line symbols

[Jeff]

I have received several word documents that I am helping an elderly relative
edit. They were apparently originally printed by his secretary on some
electronic typewriter and appear in Word as double spaced. For a variety of
reasons - when I make my corrections I end up with a lot of single-spaced
half lines interspersed with other double lines - I need to change them into
a single space document.

However when I "select all" and go to Format/paragraph I find they are
already formatted as "Single Space". If I turn on the end of line symbols
(like a reverse P) I see that at the end of each line there is an end of
line followed by another end of line symbol at the beginning of the next
line. So I thought to find and replace each 2 "reverse P"s by a single P -
or better still NO P at all - but cannot find the end of line (reverse P)
symbol in the find tool. Is there a way to search for it and remove it?

Thanks.

Jeff

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

The electronic typewriter has created double spacing (as typewriters do)
with two carriage returns (the equivalent of pressing Enter twice in Word).
This results in a line of text followed by an empty paragraph followed by a
line of text, etc. See http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/CleanWebText.htm

 

[Uncle Joe]

The end-of-line (paragraph) symbol you're referring to
would be entered as "^p" (don't key in quotes) in the
from field. To replace two paragraph markers with one:

Replace: ^p^p
With: ^p

 

[Jeff]

Thank you both. ^p did it for me.

Jeff (or should it be nephew Jeff <grin>)