How do I Remove A Specific Amount of Characters from Lines in a Document?

tatihulot · #1 01-17-2016, 05:21 PM

Hello, everyone, I am using Word 2010.
I have a document with a list that looks like this:

Cyndi Lauper - Complete Discography
1980 - Blue Angel (reissue 2005)
1983 - She's So Unusual (CBS Inc. 07464-38930-2)
1984 - Live At The Summit (Houston'84)
1986 - True Colors (Japan edition)
1989 - A Night To Remember
1989 - The Best Remixes
1993 - Hat Full Of Stars
1993 – Who Let In The Rain (Epic – 659039 1 Single)
1994 - Twelve Deadly Cyns... And Then Some
1996 - Sisters Of Avalon
1998 - Merry Christmas...Have A Nice Life
2000 - Time After Time (The Best Of)
2001 - Feels Like Christmas
2001 - Shine ( Epic Records)
2003 - At Last
2003 - Essential Cyndi Lauper
2004 - Shine (Japan)

2005 - Hey Now! (Remixes & Rarities))
2005 - The Body Acoustic
2006 - Collections
2007 - The Very Best Of (Expanded edition)
2008 - Bring Ya To The Brink
2008 - Greatest Hits (Steel Box Collection)
2008 - Into The Nightlife (remixes)
2009 - Floor Remixes
2009 - Playlist... The Very Best of Cyndi Lauper
2010 - Memphis Blues
2010 - Memphis Blues (Brazil Edition)
2011 - To Memphis, With Love

I want to remove the date and the dash from the beginning of each line in the list. Actually, I want to remove the date, the space before the dash, the dash itself, and the space after the dash. The first seven spaces from each line in this list.

So, the end result would look like this:
Blue Angel (reissue 2005)
She's So Unusual (CBS Inc. 07464-38930-2)
Live At The Summit (Houston'84)
etc.

I assume I use the Replace option for this. Am I correct? If I am, where do I go from there? How do I do this for ONLY the list, and not the rest of the document?

Thank you! Jack D.

macropod · #2 01-17-2016, 08:18 PM

You can do this with an ordinary Find/Replace, where:
Find = ^#^#^#^#^w-^w
Replace = nothing

If you only want to process a particular range, select it beforehand and answer 'No' when prompted to search the rest of the document.

tatihulot · #3 01-18-2016, 05:28 AM

Thank you for replying. I eventually realized I could probably record a macro that removes specific text strings and specific characters. After dabbling with a few test macros, I got one that did precisely what I wanted.

Why I didn't think of macros before posting the question, I don't know. But I do appreciate you taking the time to reply. Jack D.

macropod · #4 01-18-2016, 07:59 PM

But, as my reply showed, you don't need a macro...

Without seeing your recorded macro, I can confidently say it wouldn't be as efficient as:

Code:

Sub Demo()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
With ActiveDocument.Range
  With .Find
    .ClearFormatting
    .Replacement.ClearFormatting
    .Text = "^#^#^#^#^w-^w"
    .Replacement.Text = ""
    .Forward = True
    .Wrap = wdFindContinue
    .Format = False
    .MatchWildcards = False
    .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
  End With
End With
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

eNGiNe · #5 01-19-2016, 01:56 AM

This triggered vague memories – so I checked, and for something like this (where the text you want to select mines up quite neatly) you can use Alt + mouse to select a vertical block and then delete the selection as usual. At least as quick as setting up a regular expression find/replace :-}

tatihulot · #6 01-22-2016, 05:55 AM

Quote:

This triggered vague memories – so I checked, and for something like this (where the text you want to select mines up quite neatly) you can use Alt + mouse to select a vertical block and then delete the selection as usual. At least as quick as setting up a regular expression find/replace :-}

PERFECT! This does EXACTLY what I want!

Incredibly simple. Thank you!

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