New user having trouble getting line/blank operations to work

motreo

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motreo

@guy038 Per the recommendation of @peterjones, I got rid of all the funky non-normal blank spaces by replacing \xa0 with \x20. Now that I’m left with a transcript with CRLF line endings and only normal blank spaces, do you know what expression can be used to join only consecutive lines + lines separated by a single blank line?

PeterJones

@motreo ,

single spaced
will be joined

as will double-spaced


but not triple spaced

FIND = (?<![\r\n])(\R){1,2}(?!\R)
REPLACE = \x20
REPLACE ALL

This says “for matches that don’t have a \r or \n before it, match 1 or 2 newline sequences, which aren’t followed by a newline” and “replace with a space”. This will collapse lines that are single spaced or double spaced into one line, but triple spaced or wider will be left unedited.

This is just one solution that seems to fit your description. TIMTOWTDI.

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Useful References

Terry R

@motreo said in New user having trouble getting line/blank operations to work:

do you know what expression can be used to join only consecutive lines + lines separated by a single blank line?

I will repeat my request. The previous time you showed “real text” was after edits had been done. So if you could provide the “original” text in that manner you might get a response that can fix ALL them in 1 go. If not then at least once you have the process sorted you can make a macro of the steps. This can then be saved and played back whenever you have a transcript to process.

Terry

motreo

@terry-r Sorry, I think I’m still a bit confused by what you mean when you say “real text”. Do you mean something like this?

Imagine the day a civilization discovers the  

starry night sky above contains billions of 
billions of worlds awaiting their arrival.  

Now imagine the day they realize 
those voyages will never be made.
 

So earlier this week we were talking about Kessler 
Syndrome, collision cascades around planets that

I’m not sure if the original text needs to be the starting point - now that I know how to quickly get rid of no-break spaces and change line endings to CRLF, wouldn’t it make more sense to treat that as my starting point?

Terry R

@motreo said in New user having trouble getting line/blank operations to work:

wouldn’t it make more sense to treat that as my starting point?

If you want to start at the new starting point that is OK by me. But what I’m saying is that you have this original transcript that includes NBSP (non-breaking spaces) and LF without CR codes.

Regular expressions (regex) are a wondrous thing. They magically fix all that, well maybe not magically but they are very powerful if coded well. There’s a real chance 1 regex can do it all! You’d open the “original” transcript in Notepad++, hit a macro and voila, the result appears as you want it.

Terry

PS thanks for the latest example. That format allows us (the coders) to take a stab at the real data, almost albeit without NBSP and give you a solution.

motreo

@peterjones

single spaced
will be joined

as will double-spaced


but not triple spaced

What does triple spaced mean in this context? I ran the expression and everything was merged into one long, single paragraph. There are extra spaces left between words (between 2-5 spaces) but those are easy to edit out with search/replace. Let me post a before and after:

Before

Imagine the day a civilization discovers the  

starry night sky above contains billions of 
billions of worlds awaiting their arrival.  

Now imagine the day they realize 
those voyages will never be made.
 

So earlier this week we were talking about Kessler 
Syndrome, collision cascades around planets that

After

Imagine the day a civilization discovers the   starry night sky above contains billions of  billions of worlds awaiting their arrival.   Now imagine the day they realize  those voyages will never be made.   So earlier this week we were talking about Kessler  Syndrome, collision cascades around planets that

Terry R

@terry-r said in New user having trouble getting line/blank operations to work:

There’s a real chance 1 regex can do it all! You’d open the “original” transcript in Notepad++, hit a macro and voila, the result appears as you want it.

@motreo
I think I have the 1 regex to do:

convert NBSP (\xa0) into ordinary spaces (\x20).
remove multiple spaces together, replacing with 1 ordinary space.
remove 1 or 2 line feeds with possible spaces\NBSP in between (\n seen as LF).
make any 3 line feeds together (with possible spaces\NBSP in between) just a single CRLF (Windows carriage return\line feed).

So with your original transcript you should be able to open that in Notepad++, copy the next 2 bits of code (highlighted in red, just use copy and paste) into the appropriate field in the Replace function and click on Replace All.

Find What:(\xa0|\x20)(?=([\xa0\x20])?)|\n([\xa0\x20]*\n([\xa0\x20]*\n)?)?
Replace With:(?{1}(?{2}:\x20))(?{4}\r\n)

It will look complicated, don’t worry about that at the moment. I will describe what it is doing, once you confirm it works as expected.

Let us know how it went. As you only provided a small sample there is a chance it may miss something to which you were unaware of, this happens.

Terry

motreo

@terry-r Just gave it a try, using a version of the transcript with CRLF line endings and NBSPs intact (I just copied and pasted the text into Notepad++ rather than downloading the transcript file and selecting Open in Notepad++, which yields LF line endings and gives the error message that the document is read only when trying to run expressions).

The NBSPs were removed and CRLF line endings changed to just CR, but the lines themselves were unchanged/no lines were merged. I checked Regular expression and Wrap around and left the Transparency box blank. Thanks again for helping me with this, I really appreciate it.

Terry R

@motreo said in New user having trouble getting line/blank operations to work:

using a version of the transcript with CRLF line endings and NBSPs intact (I just copied and pasted the text into Notepad++ rather than downloading the transcript file and selecting Open in Notepad++, which yields LF line endings and gives the error message that the document is read only when trying to run expressions).

I meant for you to use the “original” version with the LF. If you rather use an already altered version you need to let us know. Regex are created specifically for a task using the data in a pre-determined format. Altering anything in the data will very likely throw out the result, as you saw.

What you could try is this altered Find What code:
(\xa0|\x20)(?=([\xa0\x20])?)|\R([\xa0\x20]*\R([\xa0\x20]*\R)?)?
however I haven’t tested it

Terry

PS I actually explained what my regex was doing, I thought it would have been obvious it was concerned with the LF version.

guy038

Hello, @motreo, @terry-r, @alan-kilborn, @peterjones and All,

OK, I understood… Each time a line-break occurs in @motreo’s text, it may be preceded by possible horizontal space characters, like \x20 , \xa0 or \t. Moreover, if some horizontal space chars are found between words, they may be different from a simple space char. So, a solution could be :

Open the Replace dialog ( Ctrl + H )
- SEARCH (\h*\R){3,}|(\h*\R){1,2}|(?![\r\n])([\t\xa0]+|\x20{2,})(?!\R)
  - REPLACE (?1\r\n\r\n)(?2\x20)?3\x20 if the line endings must be CRLF, after replacement
- OR
  - REPLACE (?1\n\n)(?2\x20)?3\x20 if the line endings must be LF, after replacement
  - Untick all box options
  - Tick the Wrap around option
  - Select the Regular expression search mode
  - Click once on the Replace All button or several times, till the end of process, on the Replace button
  - Hit the ESC button to close the Replace dialog

Note : May be, you’ll have to delete the last space character at the very end of your text. Not a big task, anyway !

Best Regards,

guy038

motreo

@guy038 It worked!!! I’m so glad - thanks so much for your help with this! :)

motreo

@terry-r For some reason I can’t use any regexs on the LF versions of these transcripts - I get an error message about the document being read only. Guy038 wrote a new regex that worked like a charm, though.

Thanks again for your help leading me through this. I appreciate it :)