Apache OpenOffice Community Forum

Please answer the following questions, along with describing your problem or question.

Which version of OpenOffice.org are you using:
What Operating System (version) are you using:

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Your question: Is there a global command that will remove all linebreaks from a file in Open Office 2.3.1? And how would I replace all double linebreaks with paragragh breaks? Previously I have just gone back to Word, where it's obvious and easy, but there must be a way in OpenOffice.

Edit > Find & Replace
Search for: \n
Replace with: a space
Options > Regular expressions = YES

That will replace all line breaks with a space.

For "double linebreaks" to paragraph, use:
Search for: \n\n
Replace with: \n
Options > Regular expressions = YES

Yes, that makes no sense at all, but it works.

Obviously, you have to process the "double linebreaks" before you do the others.

Many thanks for the quick response. I would never have thought to check the regular expressions box! Is this something that most people would understand? Also, could someone say if expressions for linebreak etc are given somewhere? I did look, but couldn't find anything relevant.

Is this something that most people would understand?

No--that's why it's tucked away under the "Options" view.

Regular expressions are more powerful (in some ways) than Word's wildcards but also more difficult to use. There is a full list of the pattern items in the online help, under "Regular Expressions".

You can also take a look at this article: Regular Expressions in Writer [OOo wiki]

Regular expressions have been around some 20 years in advanced text editors and programming languages.
A dot means "any item" like ? in shell patterns. The asterisc * means "zero or more of the preceeding item". Thus .* means "zero or more of any item" like * in shell patterns.

Short hand tutorial for those missing simple * and ?
- Use .* instead of *
- Use . instead of ?
- ^ means start of paragraph
- $ means end of paragraph
- if you search for a literal * escape it with \*
- same with any kind of braces and any of ^$.*?\&|
- in doubt escape anything but <, > and alphanumerics, since \<, \>, \n, \t and \C have a special meaning in regexes.

Some examples derived from the above set of rules:

Hi,


Sorry for digging up this thread, but this does not work for me.using OO 3.3.0 on XP. I followed te instructions to the lletteer but OO would just search the whole document, without result, while I can clearly see the \n\n\n. I try with \n\n (one linebreak less) and no luck either.

You might try the AltSearch extension for that.

You need to drop the More Options arrow and tick regular expressions. But AltSearch extension is the way to go.

RoryOF wrote:You need to drop the More Options arrow and tick regular expressions. But AltSearch extension is the way to go.

Thanks, but I already ticked that option, thay's why I was so surprised my expression didn't work. I'll try the altsearch extension, thanks!

The regular Find and Replace is limited, as far as I remember, by OOo's 64K character limit for paragraphs. AltSearch is not, because of the language in which it is written.

Edit: Also, I think the \n in Find only matches Ctrl Enter = you may have to use $ or some combination of $ and ^$. I always have to work it out when I need it.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you. I have been looking for this solution for several years now.