MS Word: Remove Line Breaks from Pasted Text

by AJ George 

Have you ever copied and pasted something into a Word document (such as from a pdf) and ended up with line breaks in crazy places? Or maybe every single word shows up on a separate line? Going in and manually fixing all of those line breaks can be a real headache. If you find yourself in such a pickle, use this quick fix to eliminate those hard line breaks.

1. Highlight the pasted text from which you would like to remove line breaks.
2. In MS Word 2010, press [Ctrl] [H] to access the Replace tool.
3. In the Find what field type ^p.
4. In the Replace with field press the spacebar once on your keyboard.
5. Click the Replace All button.
6. When asked if you'd like to perform the Find and Replace task for the rest of the document, click No.

This same process can be applied to MS PowerPoint and Outlook 2010.

Note: Check for any words that were hyphenated and broken in the middle by a line break and remove the hyphens before using this trick. Failing to do so will leave you with a space and a hyphen in the middle of the word. 

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AJ teaches a live, 3-hour class that offers tips/tricks for improving the look and feel of your PowerPoint presentations: Slide Sprucing: Remodeling Lackluster PowerPoint Slides for eLearning and Presentations. 

Comments

[Somu]

Very much working !

[ssagers]

Awesome tip! I still have MS Office 2007, but I tried this there and it works there as well. I've been needing this tip for years! Thanks so much!