Eliminate carriage returns (paragraph marks) at the end of each line but not at the end of each paragraph

Article contributed by Mark Baird, Bill Coan and Dave Rado

If you have pasted a file into Word in which each line ends with a paragraph mark and each paragraph ends with two or more paragraph marks: 

1.

On the Edit Menu, choose Replace.

2.

In the Find What box, enter:

([!^13])(^13)([!^13])

In the Replace With box, enter:

\1 \3

Click the More.. button, and check Use Wildcards.

Click Replace All and click OK when Word tells you it has done the replacement.

This will remove any paragraph marks that are at the end of a line but within a paragraph.

3.

Now, in the Find What box, enter:

^13{2,}

In the Replace With box, enter:

^p

Click Replace All and click OK when Word tells you it has done the replacement.

This will remove multiple consecutive paragraph marks, so that each paragraph ends with just one paragraph mark, as it should. (But also see the article: Remove all empty paragraphs from a document.)

Note that the Use Wildcards setting is sticky, so if you subsequently do another Find and Replace during the same Word session, you have to remember to switch it off again, if appropriate. (Or see the article: Clear settings from Find and Replace dialog to prevent unexpected results from future Find or Replace operations.)