Search and replace tabulators of different length...?

[Flabbergaster]

Hi


I have this source text (*.rtf) containing information in (sort of) tab-seperated columns. I want to copy it into a excel worksheet to do further analyzing.
My problem is, that the tabulator signs 'moving' the text into columns are of different length in the .rtf/.doc file, but exporting it excel treats them the same:

In the rtf file the signs look like this:

------------->

------------------------------------------>

Reading them as separators excel treats them alike.

I guess what I'm looking for is an easy way to (maybe w/search&replace) make the 'long' tabs into several tabs:

------------->
------------->------------->------------->

Real examples attached

It must be a 'automatic' solution, since we're talking about a rtf file of 1000+ pages..