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Translation - art & business » Translator resources »
Remove hard returns in pdf to word doc
Thread poster: Sonja Marks-Terrey
Sonja Marks-Terrey
Sonja Marks-Terrey  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 20:35
Member (2006)
German to English
+ ...
Apr 12, 2010

When I copy text from a pdf to a Word document it of course has a hard return at the end of each line and all free converter programs I have found wither do this too or use text boxes. Both of these methods present problems with CAT tools. Is there any easy way to remove all those irritating returns?
 
Tony M
Tony M
France
Local time: 20:35
Member
French to English
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER
Remove hard returns (in general) Apr 12, 2010

I've encountered the same problem under other circumstances.

What I do is this, using search-&-replace under Word:

To preserve genuine paragraph breaks, I first search for double paragraph breaks ^p^p and replace those with some other character like § for example that doesn't occur anywhere else in your text.

Then I replace all the remaining single paragraph breaks ^p with spaces.

And finally, I go back and replace the § with a single ... See more
I've encountered the same problem under other circumstances.

What I do is this, using search-&-replace under Word:

To preserve genuine paragraph breaks, I first search for double paragraph breaks ^p^p and replace those with some other character like § for example that doesn't occur anywhere else in your text.

Then I replace all the remaining single paragraph breaks ^p with spaces.

And finally, I go back and replace the § with a single proper paragraph break ^p

It takes longer to describe than to do!

[Edited at 2010-04-12 21:49 GMT] ▲ Collapse
 
Sergei Leshchinsky
Sergei Leshchinsky  Identity Verified
Ukraine
Local time: 21:35
Member (2008)
English to Russian
+ ...
my way Apr 12, 2010

1) Replace double spaces with single spaces. It takes several cycles.
2) Replace ^p with a space. It may take several cycles.
3) Replace double space with a ^p
4) Replace ^L with space.
Done.

(It always works in the ideal worlds ... some things might happen... act accordingly and use logic.)

Sometimes, you need to...

5) Replace double spaces with single spaces again.

[Редактировалось 2010-04-12 19:51 GMT]
 
Pablo Bouvier
Pablo Bouvier  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:35
German to Spanish
+ ...
Remove hard returns in pdf to word doc Apr 12, 2010

Sonja Marks wrote:

When I copy text from a pdf to a Word document it of course has a hard return at the end of each line and all free converter programs I have found wither do this too or use text boxes. Both of these methods present problems with CAT tools. Is there any easy way to remove all those irritating returns?


Try with codezapper.
 
Hester Eymers
Hester Eymers  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 20:35
Member (2005)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Autounbreak Apr 13, 2010

Or try Autounbreak: http://digital.hollmen.dk/products/autounbreak/index.htm
It's quite good (not perfect) and it's freeware.
 
Katherine Mérignac
Katherine Mérignac  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 20:35
Member (2004)
Thanks Apr 13, 2010

To all - these are really useful tips, so thank you!

K
 
Pablo Bouvier
Pablo Bouvier  Identity Verified
Local time: 20:35
German to Spanish
+ ...
Remove hard returns in pdf to word doc Apr 13, 2010

Katherine Mérignac wrote:

To all - these are really useful tips, so thank you!

K



It was a pleasure, Katherine. Since I published te shared link to the codezapper template from Dave Turner it has been downloaded more than 25 times. I am proud to belong to such well educated community. Thank you all.
 


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Remove hard returns in pdf to word doc


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