CreativePro Forum

Return to Member Forum

• Author
  Posts
• • September 26, 2020 at 8:51 pm #127176
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    I have placed a Word (Word for Mac 2019, if that is needed) document into InDesign (CS6, if that is needed) and this document contains a number of tables – dozens of them with up to 40-50 rows in some tables. Some rows (not all) have a small gap before the first character in the cell. It appears not to be a normal text space as, when my paragraph signs are showing, there is no little blue dot to indicate a text space. It is also not apparent in the original Word document. And no, it is not a wider left cell margin, I checked.
    Since it is not a text space, I don’t know what it is called and therefore don’t know how to search for it, other than physically inspecting each cell. But there are hundreds of them! Other than going through the whole document one cell at a time – how much spare time do you or I have? – how can I delete them? (Yes, if I place my cursor right before the first visible character and hit Delete, I can delete them, but just one at a time.)
    I have probably not used the correct terminology so I hope you can understand my problem.

  • September 28, 2020 at 1:23 am #14331414
    Chris Thompson

    Member

    If you look in Story Editor, do the space characters show up there? Maybe as some kind of marker. If so, you might be able to copy the marker from Story Editor, then paste it into a find and replace to get rid of them.
    Alternatively, if you convert one of the tables to text in InDesign, does the character show up then, allowing you to copy-find-replace?
    Good luck,
    Chris.

  • September 29, 2020 at 2:00 am #14331415
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Thank you, Chris. Sorry about the delay in replying but I was working on something else.
    Indeed, when I look in the Story Editor, the offending character shows up as a rectangle with diagonal lines forming an X cross. It is even shows some at the end of paragraphs which, because of where they are, I had not picked up in the normal view. However, when I copy that character, paste from the Story Editor into the Find/Change dialog box and click “Change All,” every text space in the entire document disappears. Thank goodness for Command-Z!
    I have realised that the Word files are the results of OCR scans and I suspect the offending character may be an artefact of the scanning process. Even the best OCR software makes weird choices at times. Although InDesign doesn’t recognise it as a normal text space (and so give it a little blue dot) it does recognise it as a text space when it is placed in the Find/Change dialog box. Frustration!
    But at least it is easier for me to pick them up visually in the Story Editor, even though it looks as though I still need to remove them one at a time. Heavy sigh!

  • September 29, 2020 at 2:14 am #127192
    Chris Thompson

    Member

    Heavy sigh indeed. You’d think there would be a way of differentiating the special space from the normal one.
    In desperation, try a GREP search instead?
    And there’s definitely nothing there in the Word doc when you turn invisibles on?

  • September 29, 2020 at 7:57 am #127198
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    One of these articles might help (check the comments, too)… I wonder if this is the dreaded FEFF character?
    https://indesignsecrets.com/mysterious-space-character-indesign.php
    or
    https://indesignsecrets.com/removing-unwanted-text-anchors.php

  • September 29, 2020 at 6:31 pm #14331420
    Tom Pardy

    Member

    Thank you, David.
    I looked in the Get Info dialog box and it was indeed {2028}, the line or record separator (of course everybody knew that!) I put that into the GREP section of the Find/Replace dialog box, left the replace section blank and hit “replace all.” InDesign reported over 700 instances replaced! Imagine trying to do that manually!

  • September 30, 2020 at 9:19 am #14331422
    David Blatner

    Keymaster

    WOW! So glad that helped.

• Author
  Posts