Forum Discussion
Using Find & Replace to insert line breaks (CTRL+J) erases cell contents
Hi,
First of all thank you for reading my post, I am kind of desperate right now LOL.
I had to paste English text from Excel into Word in order to translate it. The Excel text is really long and has lots, and lots of line breaks. So when I pasted into Word the format was maintained with regards to the number of cells and the line breaks. But now when I paste this translated Word text back into Excel each line break is generating a different cell.
In the past I've used the CTRL+J solution, involving replacing the line breaks in Word with a character that doesn't appear elsewhere in the text (I've used ****), pasting this into Excel, and then using Find & Replace in Excel to find all of the **** and replace with a line break, which used to be CTRL+J, but now this is just erasing all of the cell contents. I don't know what to do, does anyone have any idea about why this is happening? This used to work!
Thanks so much in advance.
Lulu
- I have just wasted more of my life on this than I care to contemplate, but in hopes of helping some other poor soul: CTRL-J does not work in Microsoft365 (web/online) Excel (it opens Download tab or window). CTRL-Shift-J does not work either (opens DevTool Console window). You have to go to Editing/Open in Desktop App. Then CTRL-J works.
Blooping heck, I hate Microsoft and its insistence on moving its own products into environs where they then no longer function. (See also: what a Word doc looks like in M365 vs Desktop.)volunteersfpl The ASCII for the hard return I think is ALT 010
bbkNR thanks! That worked.
All,
In the standard Excel Find/Replace I was able to add line breaks after each semicolon using
find ";"
replace ";<Alt+010>"
Don't type <Alt+010> literally, but hold down the Alt key when you type 010 on your number pad, then let go of Alt. You won't see anything added to the Replace with box, but it's there. Run the replace and you will see the linebreaks in your cell(s).
The * is a placeholder for anything. By replacing anything with CTRL-J you are left with CTRL-J..
Just use something else like zzzz or $$$$.
- You could try pasting back into the formula bar, as opposed to the cell.
There, the Ctrl/J should be interpreted as wrapped text rather than a new cell.
