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Can I remove multiple Line Breaks in Pages?

In some older text files, I'll find those annoying little backwards blue arrows when formatting in Pages.

Is there a way to remove/replace them in one action?


MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.0

Posted on Dec 17, 2022 1:37 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 18, 2022 6:37 AM

The first character below is a paragraph mark, or Pilcrow, which is also a newline character. The second character represents a line break in a paragraph, paragraph separator, or simply soft return. It is Unicode U+2029.



To remove these "soft return" characters you enter '\i' (without the single-quotes) in the Find field, and nothing in the Replace field, then select Replace All. You may need to click the right > before the Replace All becomes available.


If you just don't want to see these invisible marks, you can turn them off by toggling shift+command+i.

5 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 18, 2022 6:37 AM in response to avidfan

The first character below is a paragraph mark, or Pilcrow, which is also a newline character. The second character represents a line break in a paragraph, paragraph separator, or simply soft return. It is Unicode U+2029.



To remove these "soft return" characters you enter '\i' (without the single-quotes) in the Find field, and nothing in the Replace field, then select Replace All. You may need to click the right > before the Replace All becomes available.


If you just don't want to see these invisible marks, you can turn them off by toggling shift+command+i.

Dec 17, 2022 11:16 PM in response to avidfan

You can use Find/Replace, triggered to Replace ALL, but…


This will do exactly what is implied—replace every line break with whatever you place in the 'replace with' box. If you do not want to remove all of them, you'll need to use the other controls.

'Find next' will find the next occurrence of the item being searched for, and take no further action until you tell it to.

'Replace and find' will replace the current occurrence, then find the next one.

'Find and replace' will find the next occurrence and replace it.


Use whichever you find more convenient.


Regards,

Barry


Can I remove multiple Line Breaks in Pages?

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