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I have a massive recorded calls word document where calls are scripted out for our records. The program we use has added the date and time in front of EVERY line of text so its a very clunky record and all the lines have been exported so they are one huge paragraph of text rather than separate lines so they are appearing like this:

25/09/2019 17:42:12 - Caller has requested support for device. 25/09/2019 17:42:50 - Adviser has asked for more specific details on the issue.

I need to get each line on it's own line and remove the date and time from the beginning of each line to be left with something looking more like this:

  • Caller has requested support for device.
  • Adviser has asked for more specific details on the issue.

Any help will be hugely appreciated! :)

Tom Styles
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    Possible duplicate of [Is there a way to search for a pattern in a MS Word document?](https://superuser.com/questions/846646/is-there-a-way-to-search-for-a-pattern-in-a-ms-word-document) – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007 Sep 25 '19 at 17:01
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    Check if the message text do not contain inner dashes `-` or points`.`. If so simply replace this chars with linebreaks. Then delete datetime lines (for example by `/` presence, if message text do not contain it too)... – Akina Sep 25 '19 at 17:04
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    Hint: https://wordmvp.com/FAQs/General/UsingWildcards.htm – DavidPostill Sep 25 '19 at 17:12
  • Do update/ [edit] if you need help with these suggestions. Ping people by @ and see the quick [tour] to see how the site works! –  Sep 25 '19 at 17:27
  • Does the program you use actually create a Microsoft Word document, or was it originally some other format (ideally plaintext like .txt or similar)? If it's the latter, it may be easier to work with the original file. It might even turn out that the linebreaks are still there and have been simply lost in the conversion (e.g. if the program used Linux/Mac linebreaks, Windows doesn't always display them correctly). – Disenchanted Lurker Sep 26 '19 at 14:02
  • Guys, Thank you so much. I with a little experimentation from the info you signposted me to, I've managed to get it looking exactly how i needed it to. – Tom Styles Sep 26 '19 at 14:30

2 Answers2

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I assume you are using Microsoft Word. And all of your Text looks exactly like the examples you posted.

Simple but functional solution:

Click on the "Replace" button at the far right of the "Home" tab. This opens the "Find and Replace" feature.

Find: .

Replace with: .^l

Click on "Replace All". This should create linebreaks after each sentence.

Now make sure the "Replace with" field is completely empty. Leaving it like that, will simply delete whatever you put into the "Find" field. Do "Replace all" for 0-9, / and :

You will probably also need to replace " "(double space), or whatever you want to remove at the beginning of each sentence. Of course you cannot remove " "(single space).

If anything goes wrong, just use the "Undo" function.

elimendo
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My workaround is to replace all time information is via Word (shown as follows)

Find using Wildcards

\: \(*\)

Word to downplay Date and Time Info:
Word to downplay Date and Time Info

Markus Meyer
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panes-rubrics
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