Remove Extra Spaces Without Flattening Paragraphs
To collapse repeated spaces but keep your paragraphs, turn on Regular Expression, search for [ \t]{2,} and replace with a single space. That pattern only matches runs of two or more spaces or tabs, so line breaks are left alone. The popular \s+ pattern also matches line breaks, which is why it flattens a document into one line.
![Find and Replace with Regular Expression on, pattern [ \t]{2,}: 3 matches replaced, the blank line between the two paragraphs is kept](/blog/remove-extra-spaces-without-losing-paragraphs.png)
[ \t]{2,}, 3 replaced. The blank line between paragraphs survives. Open Find & Replace.Try it with this sample
Copy this into Input Text. The first line has double and triple spaces; there is a blank line, then a line with a single tab after “Second” and two spaces before “here”.
red blue green Second paragraph here.
- In Find, type
[ \t]{2,}. In Replace with, type one space. - Click Regular Expression so it turns blue. The badge next to Find shows 3 matches.
- Click Replace All. The Result panel shows 3 replaced and this text:
red blue green Second paragraph here.
The single tab after “Second” is still there, because the pattern needs at least two characters in a row. If you also want lone tabs turned into spaces, run a second pass with \t and a space.
What \s+ does to the same text
\s means any whitespace character: spaces, tabs and line breaks. Replacing \s+ with one space therefore also replaces the blank line.
\s+ replaced 6 runs, including the line breaks. Both paragraphs are now one line.red blue green Second paragraph here.
That is useful when you really want a single line (for example, a value for a one-line form field), but not for cleaning a document.
Be careful with indented text
Code, poetry and plain-text tables often use runs of spaces on purpose. A global cleanup removes that alignment too. Paste only the prose you want to clean, or clean it in sections.
If it doesn't work
- Nothing matches: check that Regular Expression is on. With it off, the tool searches for the literal characters
[ \t]{2,}. - Words got glued together: the Replace with box was empty. It needs one space.
- Still double-spaced after a period: some text uses a non-breaking space, which
[ \t]does not include. Try[ \t\u00A0]{2,}. - Looks different after pasting elsewhere: rich-text editors and web pages can render spacing differently. Check the final destination and keep your original until it looks right.
Everything runs in your browser; the text is not uploaded. Open the free Find & Replace tool.