Find and replace multiple blank lines

find and replacenotepad

How do I use the find and replace function in notepad to delete multiple blank lines in a text file?

Best Answer

Within notepad there is no way to use the Find and Replace and target blank lines. Consider Notepad++ and the regex search and replace.

You can use \r\n to find blank lines from text files made within Windows, \r for Mac and \n for Linux.

I believe a default install actually comes with TextFX to make your life even easier, it has an option to delete blank lines:

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Related Solutions

Notepad++ Delete Lines with Find & Replace

Use the "Extended" setting in the Replace window (not "Regular expression": I'm sure there's a way to do it with Regular expression, but using "Extended" works fine).
Enter ".pPrev.\r\n" in the "Find what" field, and leave the "Replace what" field blank. This will include the \r\n characters in the match and delete the whole line.

Windows – Find and replace text in multiple files

Using PowerShell commands:

Get-Content c:\file1.txt | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "change me please", "file1 changed" } | Set-Content c:\changed1.txt

Get-Content c:\file2.txt | ForEach-Object { $_ -replace "change me please", "file2 changed" } | Set-Content c:\changed2.txt

leaves me with the 2 files:

changed1.txt

changed2.txt

Could some kind person tell me how I would then rename these files and overwrite the originals:

changed1.txt to file1.txt

changed2.txt to file2.txt

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Notepad++ Delete Lines with Find & Replace

Windows – Find and replace text in multiple files

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