Advanced Find and Replace. How to replace space with carriage return?

Hi tagprez,

Good call.

For those who don't like "Use Selection for Find/Replace" but prefer to type a code, Numbers and Pages uses \n for a carriage return (newline).

Replacing comma space with newline:

Replace All

Regards,

Ian.

In Microsoft Word for Mac the carriage return is simply ^p. For example, to replace a comma/space with a carriage return, enter for Search Document ", " (without the quotes) and enter for Replace With "^p" (again without the quotes). Can we assume ^p works as a carriage return in other programs?

HI Brendan,

You don't need an advanced find and replace for this.

In the find box, press , then space.

In the replace with box, press option-return.

Click find next, then Replace and Find until you're done.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Brendon,

Correct. Any combination of keystrokes separated by hyphens means "Press and hold all keys except the last in the list, then tap the last key, then release all."

Other examples:

shift-command-3 (takes a screen shot and saves it as a file on the desktop)

shift-command-4 (changes the mouse pointer to a cross hair, with which you can select a portion of the screen. Takes a screen shot of the enclosed area when the mouse in released, and saves it as a file on the desktop.

shift-control-command-3

shift-control-command-4 These take the screen shots described above, but place the result on the Clipboard, not in a file.

option-return or option-tab should place a return (or tab) into the Find or Replace box depending where you have the insertion point. You should see a Pilcrow symbol ( ¶ ) in the box. Example below (in Numbers '09).

Regards,

Barry

Try showing invisibles (in Pages), copying a return from there, then pasting it into the Find Replace pane.

Regards,

Barry

Hi Brendon,

In Numbers 3, click on the View button in the ToolBar

Choose Show Find & Replace

In the Find box, type comma space.

Insert a text box and type a single return character (press the enter key) and select that return.

Menu > Edit > Find > Use Selection for Replace

The return doesn't show, but it is there in the Replace box.

Click on Replace All to replace every occurrence in that document.

From Numbers Help: Find and Replace Text:

Regards,

Ian.

It happens that I just spent an hour devising various futile approaches to substituting spaces for carriage returns in a Pages document. They included all the tricks described above. What's most frustrating is that on my older iBook, AppleWorks does this routinely. I believe \p represents the carriage return, or you can type one and copy it. Unhappily, Apple's attempts to gussy up their apps don't include leaving the good parts alone, or in AppleWorks' case, not tinkering with it at all.

BrendonD wrote:

unfortunately again this has not worked. The carriage return, appearing in the text box exactly as in your steps, translates into a space in the replace window. Then when the replace all function is used, a space not carriage return is added in substitute.

Hi Brendon,

It took me a while figure out what I was missing, but Ian's method definitely works here in v. 3.6.1. Here's what worked:

1. Type , followed by a space in the first box in 'Find & Replace' dialog.
2. Create a text box by clicking the icon in the toolbar, type return once to put the focus in the new text box, and another return to put an invisible return character in it. Then select the entire contents (two lines consisting of one invisible character) of the text box (I typed command-a to do this).
3. With the contents of the text box selected, in the menu Go to Edit > Find and choose 'Use Selection for Replace'
4. Click 'Replace All' in the 'Find & Replace' dialog.

SG

I can verify that, as obtuse and counter-intuitive it is (to say nothing of profoundly un-Apple-like), SGIII's procedure does actually work. Quite consistently, in my experience. I had to learn this unpleasantry a few days ago. Ugh.

Its clumsiness is so bad it almost disappoints me that it works, but... well, Bob's your uncle. In this case, Bob is an overweight heavy drinker who doesn't use deodorant, but he does actually do his job.

I'm with macmikey on this - although it does work it is horribly frustrating and one of the best reasons not to use Pages. The idea that you can functionally track so much detail required to control all three variables here: the scope of your find/replace, the find characters and the replace characters is utterly ridiculous when the software does not show you what the heck is happening as it is happening. To me the idea of "invisibles" in a word processor is frankly arrogant and insulting. I use MS-Word for OSX because it is a huge time saver. That product shows you what you need to see to easily control all of the variables. And you'll not need to resort to reading forums to figure things out.

danielfromcolumbus wrote:

To me the idea of "invisibles" in a word processor is frankly arrogant and insulting.

Then you'd best not use any word processor!🙂

The app here in the screenshot: Microsoft Word.

SG