Thanks to Scott, we can figure out your problem, much better ! So, as your address field is 100 characters wide, in case of a two-lines address, each part, before and after the tilde character ( ~ ), have a maximum of 50 characters and, of course, a minimum of 1 character.

Thus, given, for instance, the original text, below ( By convention, I’m using digits in the first part address, before the ~ and upper-case letters, in the second part, after the ~ character, both between 1 and 50 characters long )

---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6---------7---------8---------9---------0---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6
                                                       1~A
                                                       1~ABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJ
                                                       12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890~A
                                                       12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890~ABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJ

                                                       In Care of John Doe~1000 John Street Hobbs NM 88240

I would propose two steps :

• A FIRST normal OR regex search / replacement, which adds 50 space characters, in front of the ~ symbol :

SEARCH  :~

REPLACE :                                                  ~

• A SECOND regex search / replacement, right after, which deletes any consecutive range of space characters, between position 106 and the ~ symbol :

SEARCH  :(?-s)^(.{105}) +~

REPLACE :\1

Notes :

• Copy/paste, in the Replace dialog, each zone, selecting text AFTER the colon character

• In the second search regex ^(.{105}) +~, there is a space character, before the + symbol

• Select the Regular expression mode

• In the second replacement regex, we just re-write the group 1 ( the first 105 characters of each line )

• These two S/R preserves any text which is before column 56 , and after the second part of the address field

Then, after these two consecutive regex S/R, you should obtain the text, below, with the second part address moved to column 106 :

---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6---------7---------8---------9---------0---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6
                                                       1                                                 A
                                                       1                                                 ABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJ
                                                       12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890A
                                                       12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890ABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJABCDEFGHIJ

                                                       In Care of John Doe                               1000 John Street Hobbs NM 88240

IMPORTANT :

• If your text may contain some tabulation characters, just change them by the appropriate number of space characters, using the Edit - Blank Operations - TAB to Space menu option !

• If your text may contain other ~ characters, located outside the address field, just tell me and we’ll slightly change the first search !

Best Regards,

guy038

And yes, there is non-blank data to the left and right.

I think you might be a “victim” of the “markdown” syntax used on this site in trying to show your “before” and “after” text.

Maybe you are trying to say this:

---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6---------7---------8---------9---------0---------1---------2---------3---------4---------5---------6
                                                       In Care of John Doe~1000 John Street Hobbs NM 88240                                                 |
                                                       In Care of John Doe                               1000 John Street Hobbs NM 88240                   |

I added a “ruler line” with every 10 columns called out; also a vertical bar at the end of what I think would be your “before” and “after” lines.

I really don’t know if this is correct or not. You probably have non-blank data to the left of column 56. And maybe to the right.

Anyway if you want to show your before and after data better, here’s the key: Indent each line with 4 spaces when you paste into this site. Then it will become what is known as a “code block” (the black box above).