how can I remove all tabs from a document?

R

RAJ2828

I have copied an excel spreadsheet into both Word and Notepad. How can I
remove all the tabs that were automatically created by the Excel columns?
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

Tab characters? If you really want to do this, you can search for ^t and
replace with nothing or a space, but this will give you one big unmanageable
blob of text; it would make more sense to use Table | Convert | Text to
Table, separating at tabs.
 
L

Lene Fredborg

Select Edit > Replace (or press Ctrl+H).
In the "Find what" field, type ^t.
Make sure the "Replace with" field is empty.
Click "Replace All".

--
Regards
Lene Fredborg
DocTools - Denmark
www.thedoctools.com
Document automation - add-ins, macros and templates for Microsoft Word
 
H

Herb Tyson [MVP]

When pasting a spreadsheet into Word from Excel, the default is to convert
it into a table.

The OP's question makes me wonder if they might've pasted first into
Notepad, selected/copied there, then pasted into Word (or pasted as
unformatted). In either case, if they're subsequently converting into a
table, this seem rather round-about when the spreadsheet could be pasted as
a table in the first place.
 
S

Suzanne S. Barnhill

I had the same thought. If the OP doesn't want the text as a table, it would
still make more sense to paste as a table and then convert the table to
text, separating with appropriate characters.
 
R

RAJ2828

Thank you for all of your ideas but I have tried them all to no avail. For
some reason if you try to copy and past multiple columns from Excel into Word
the columns end up becoming these tabs which would be fine to delete manually
except that there are over 5000 of them to be dealt with.

Also, the "find/replace" option doesn't seem to want to do them all at once.
It only lets me repalce one damn tab at a time - EVEN - when I hit the
"replace all key". There must be an easier solution that lets you just
remove all the tabs with the push of a button. Or atleast I hope there is.
Thank you all again and if anyone comes up with anything new I would really
appreciate the news. Thanks again!

Sincerely,

RJ
 
H

Herb Tyson [MVP]

Can you describe how you're pasting from Excel into Word?

Try this. After selecting the material in Excel and copying to the
clipboard, in Word, choose Edit - Paste Special, and tell us what the
default paste option is (it should be selected).

If you choose one of the formatted options (RTF or HTML), it should paste
the selection as a Word table.
 
R

RAJ2828

I am selecting columns in Excel and then "right-clicking" and selecting
"copy". Then I open up Word and "right-click" and select "paste".

Also, I tried looking for the "paste special" option in Word and I can't
find it. Do you know where it is?
 
H

Herb Tyson [MVP]

In any version of Word, Alt+E followed by S should work.

In Word 2003 (and earlier), click Edit (in the menu), and Paste Special
should be among the choices.

In Word 2007, click the little down arrow at the bottom of the Paste button
(in the Home ribbon tab). Paste Special should be listed. In Word 2007, you
can also use the new shortcut key, Ctrl+Alt+V.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Author of the Word 2007 Bible
Blog: http://word2007bible.herbtyson.com
Web: http://www.herbtyson.com
 
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