Remove Line Breaks or Hard Returns in MS Word & TextEdit

This short video shows how to remove line breaks or hard returns from a large amount of text using Find/Replace to save time versus manual removal.

[autentyk]

Wow. Last piece of the puzzle. I have been making hand-written transcripts of medical youtube videos for 9 long months. Granted, learning a world of knowledge in the process. But what I have discovered since yesterday, ending on this video, will make my life infinitely easier. Thank you a whole, hard-return-free bunch!

[RedRoomPavlova]

Short, sweet, and to the point! Thank you so much!

[cathygladwin]

You saved the day! Honestly, this has a HUGE impact on our work. Thanks.

[Taima]

What a badass, absolutely love short and straight to the point videos. Thanks!

[_Ra_Mille_]

Oh my god! It is so easy to do. Thank you so much, Ashley! I was not able to find this solution in the internet before.

[amborns]

You can also remove hard line breaks with Notepad before using Word. First, highlight the "invisible" end of a text line and the "invisible" start of the next text line. Then, open Edit and select Replace. The highlighted hard return is in the "Find What" block. Put a space in the "Replace with" block and you are on your way.

[anish]

Thanks for being so short and specific.

[gppasini]

Hi Ashley, firstky thanks a lot! Unfortunately I cannot get the clearing of line breaks/hard return work by typing in find *P. Please advise! Thansk!

[arturolazo]

Thank you Ashley!!! You saved me a LOT of time!

[pnkpanther]

Adding the space in the replace section added "dots" or bullets. When I removed the space, it worked. Must be updates to Microsoft Word that changed this over time. Thank you.

[teachingtechacademy]

Awesome!! Really needed to learn this and couldn't figure it out! Many thanks for saving me a ton of time.

[BradleyGriffink]

I've got the paragraph symbol at the end of each line. But there are additional dots - like in the middle of the line, not periods - that are showing up between each word of the transcript. When I toggle the *"Paragraph Symbol"* off in Word, then the little dots _(along with the Paragraph symbol)_ go away. The second I toggle it back on, they appear again. Would anyone know why that is? Thanks!

[juliv]

Hello thank you for this! Is there a similar function for google docs?

[aswathi_brd]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! You have no idea how much of a help this is for me!

[rafiulalamnahian]

you've just changed my life. Now i feel like a better person. Thanks :)

[doggiesarus]

Thank you so much! I had a novel I wrote years ago (maybe over 10 years) that was written in some unknown word processor program, on a platform that I can't even remember. I could never figure out how to get rid of the hard returns that cut the lines in half. I am so glad I found this.

[panda.aesthetic]

Very very useful! Thank you so much 🙏🏻I was editing texts with line breaks MANUALLY! 🤦‍♀ You saved me so much time, I am so grateful 🖤

[abdulazizadoyusuf]

And here I am in 2023 finding this helpful. Thanks alot.

[christelle]

I rarely comment but had to this time! Straight to the point and it worked!

[victoriaohlin]

Thank you! I do Social Media work and I have a client who communicates entirely thorugh voicememos lol this is a life savor.