Merge All Paragraph Breaks In Microsoft Word After Copying Text From PDFs
What This VBA Code Does
This past weekend I was tasked with recreating a PDF document in Microsoft Word. Unfortunately, whenever I copy and pasted the PDF text, every single line was its own new paragraph.
Since fixing this 7-page document manually would have taken forever, I decided to whip up some macro code to fix each “real” paragraph in a split second. After a little research, I saw that this is a common problem when copying & pasting text from a PDF into Microsoft word. So I thought I would be a nice guy and post my code to the website. Just select the text you want to fix and run this code. Enjoy!
Sub Paragraph_Merger()
'PURPOSE: Get rid of unnecessary paragraph breaks (typically caused when copying PDF text)
'SOURCE: www.TheSpreadsheetGuru.com/the-code-vault
'Remove unnecessary paragraphs
With Selection.Find
.Text = "^p"
.Replacement.Text = " "
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
End With
'Replace All Instances
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
'Remove any double spaces
With Selection.Find
.Text = " "
.Replacement.Text = " "
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
End With
'Replace All Instances
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End SubUsing VBA Code Found On The Internet
Now that you’ve found some VBA code that could potentially solve your Excel automation problem, what do you do with it? If you don’t necessarily want to learn how to code VBA and are just looking for the fastest way to implement this code into your spreadsheet, I wrote an article (with video) that explains how to get the VBA code you’ve found running on your spreadsheet.
Getting Started Automating Excel
Are you new to VBA and not sure where to begin? Check out my quickstart guide to learning VBA. This article won’t overwhelm you with fancy coding jargon, as it provides you with a simplistic and straightforward approach to the basic things I wish I knew when trying to teach myself how to automate tasks in Excel with VBA Macros.
Also, if you haven’t checked out Excel’s latest automation feature called Power Query, I have put together a beginner’s guide for automating with Excel’s Power Query feature as well! This little-known built-in Excel feature allows you to merge and clean data automatically with little to no coding!
How Do I Modify This To Fit My Specific Needs?
Chances are this post did not give you the exact answer you were looking for. We all have different situations and it’s impossible to account for every particular need one might have. That’s why I want to share with you: My Guide to Getting the Solution to your Problems FAST! In this article, I explain the best strategies I have come up with over the years to get quick answers to complex problems in Excel, PowerPoint, VBA, you name it!
I highly recommend that you check this guide out before asking me or anyone else in the comments section to solve your specific problem. I can guarantee that 9 times out of 10, one of my strategies will get you the answer(s) you are needing faster than it will take me to get back to you with a possible solution. I try my best to help everyone out, but sometimes I don’t have time to fit everyone’s questions in (there never seem to be quite enough hours in the day!).
I wish you the best of luck and I hope this tutorial gets you heading in the right direction!
After 10+ years of creating macros and developing add-ins, I've compiled all the hacks I wish I had known years ago!
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Chris Newman
Chris is a finance professional and Excel MVP recognized by Microsoft since 2016. With his expertise, he founded TheSpreadsheetGuru blog to help fellow Excel users, where he shares his vast creative solutions & expertise. In addition, he has developed over 7 widely-used Excel Add-ins that have been embraced by individuals and companies worldwide.