Add dashes to each line of a list

[Tomperm]

Hello,



I have a list of IDs containing 32 characters and I need to format them in a certain way, namely to add dashes “-“ after the 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th characters. So my question is: is there any way to format like this en masse because I obviously can’t add the dashes manually for the thousands of IDs I have.

Here’s an example:
Current ID -> 0DA88BE61C864A99BE730EEE81D82FCC
Needed ID -> 0DA88BE6-1C86-4A99-BE73-0EEE81D82FCC

I’d appreciate any help for this.

Thanks,
Tom

[gmayor]

Use a replacement of:
([0-9A-Z]{8})([0-9A-Z]{4})([0-9A-Z]{4})([0-9A-Z]{4})([0-9A-Z]{12})
with
\1-\2-\3-\4-\5
with the wildcard option set - http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm
or by macro

Sub Macro1()
Dim oRng As Range
    Set oRng = ActiveDocument.Range
    With oRng.Find
        Do While .Execute(FindText:="([0-9A-Z]{8})([0-9A-Z]{4})([0-9A-Z]{4})([0-9A-Z]{4})([0-9A-Z]{12})", _
                          MatchWildcards:=True, ReplaceWith:="\1-\2-\3-\4-\5")
            oRng.Collapse 0
        Loop
    End With
End Sub

[Tomperm]

Worked like a charm!

Thanks, Graham.