0

Is it possible to replace control characters like newline and tab in Pages version 5.6.1?

I'm aware of How to use find and replace to replace a character with new line and the possibility of inserting literal characters in TextEdit by using option-return or option-tab but both those don't apply to current Pages version.

In my case I want to replace multiple newlines with a single one, I tried exporting the document to ODF and doing the replace with LibreOffice but the structure of the document is such that LibreOffice cannot correctly save it back. Once the file with the replaced newlines is saved I cannot open it again, neither with Pages nor with LibreOffice itself.

Improve this question

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

Pages no longer supports finding and replacing "special" characters since version 5.1.

Just one of the features that disappeared not to come back again.

Improve this answer
1
  • That sets it, then. As a side note it is quite sad that such a basic need has been removed on purpose.
    – anddam
    Commented Feb 29, 2016 at 10:40
1

Actually, I was looking to replace tabs. (Pages versions 7.0)

I selected a tab from the text, pasted it into the search field - voilà. To my surprise, when I opened the search field again, it showed \t now - which found again tabs.

I am not sure if this is newly introduced, but a nice and quite common way to encode special characters.

Improve this answer
3
  • Which version of Pages?
    – bjbk
    Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 14:15
  • I'm using 7.0 (5576)
    – Axel
    Commented Apr 1, 2018 at 18:45
  • Confirmed \n finds line breaks in 7.0
    – bjbk
    Commented Apr 2, 2018 at 19:45
-1

Actually, you can just type "\n" for this.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .