I still get documents to edit that use multiple spaces instead of tabs. We joke that this is a holdover from typewriters, but every one I ever used had a tab key.
Anyway, how can this be fixed fast in Word?
I used to do a find a replace of 2 spaces, with 1 space. If you do this repeatedly, it eventually says that there are no more corrections to make. Note that this still is probably the best way to deal with people who put 2 spaces after periods (even though word processors have put a little extra space there since the early 90’s).
But, to change multiple spaces to a tab (as in a paragraph indent – or worse, the folks who center stuff in table cells this way) you need to do a bit more:
- Choose Replace from the Edit menu (or press [Ctrl]+H) to open the Find And Replace dialog box.
- Click the More button.
- In the Find What text box, enter one space character and the following characters, exactly as shown: {2,}.
- In the Replace With control, enter ^t.
- Check the Use Wildcards option.
Read the whole thing at TechRepublic.
