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Tips.Net > WordTips Home > Editing > Strip Trailing Spaces

Strip Trailing Spaces

Summary: A common nuisance in documents is unnecessary trailing spaces at the end of paragraphs. This tip provides a macro that makes quick work of those spaces, removing them from the document completely. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, and Word 2003.)

Maybe I'm one of those compulsive-obsessive types, but I always go through my documents to make sure there are no trailing spaces at the end of a line. This makes the document neater and smaller. If you format ASCII files, you will need to search for trailing spaces, and remove them, as you format the file for Word. The following macro, StripSpaces, will take out all spaces before paragraph marks and manual line breaks throughout your document.

Sub StripSpaces()
    Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
    Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
    Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
    With Selection.Find
        .Text = " ^p"
        .Replacement.Text = "^p"
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute
    While Selection.Find.Found
        Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
        Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
        Selection.Find.Execute
    Wend

    Selection.Find.Text = " ^l"
    Selection.Find.Replacement.Text = "^l"
    Selection.Find.Execute
    While Selection.Find.Found
        Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
        Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
        Selection.Find.Execute
    Wend
End Sub

Tip #969 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003


Find and Replace Almost Anything! Learn the ins and outs of the powerful search engines available in Word. Learn to search for and replace text, formatting, graphics, and special characters the easy way with WordTips: Find and Replace.

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