Notepad++ - How can I replace blank lines

Question

I have a text file with a thousand lines of numbers like so:

As you can see there is a blank line in between each number that I want to remove so that I have

402
115
90
...

How can I do this?

That move-to-SU voter, just put [notepad++] in your ignored tags and move on, because [questions about a programmer's text editor are allowed here](http://stackoverflow.com/faq#questions). — BoltClock, Aug 07 '11 at 17:18

score 192 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 07 '11 at 17:20

192

Press Ctrl+H (Replace)
Select Extended from SearchMode
Put \r\n\r\n in Find What
Put \r\n in ReplaceWith
Click on Replace All

Replace multiple line breaks

answered Aug 07 '11 at 17:20

YetAnotherUser

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7

Actually, this only works if there are only two new lines between each line of text. – Griffin Aug 08 '11 at 00:06
1

@Griffin: The duplicate link I mention beneath the question goes beyond exactly two blank lines. – BoltClock Aug 12 '11 at 17:57
@YetAnotherUser: It's a plugin that ships with current Notepad++ installations by default. Or at least, as far as I can remember it does... – BoltClock Aug 12 '11 at 18:06
5

In my case, there were several blank lines instead of 2. Repeated click on "Replace All" did the trick. – Shamim Hafiz - MSFT Dec 05 '14 at 18:35
2

Didn't work for me :( the trick edit->line operations->remove empty lines worked perfectly. – Monday to Friday Oct 04 '18 at 11:22

score 167 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 23 '22 at 09:58

167

As of NP++ V6.2.3 (nor sure about older versions) simply:

Go menu -> Edit -> Line operations
Choose "Remove Empty Lines" or "Remove Empty Lines (Containing white spaces)" according to your needs.

edited Dec 23 '22 at 09:58

starball

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answered Mar 04 '13 at 11:36

Liudas

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I'm trying this, but on a file with about 1.5 million empty rows. The program is just freezing. I'm not sure if it has crashed or just working through all of these rows. – Joshua Schlichting Apr 06 '17 at 12:44
A bit too late maybe, but for 1.5 million empty rows make a program, I recommend to use Perl a scripting langauge that works very well with text operations. – Eduardo Oct 04 '17 at 08:17

jakub.g · Answer 3 · 2012-06-11T18:14:34.967

22

By the way, in Notepad++ there's built-in plugin that can handle this: TextFX -> TextFX Edit -> Delete Blank Lines (first press CTRL+A to select all).

edited Jun 11 '12 at 18:14

answered Sep 14 '11 at 22:05

jakub.g

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That one works for multiple empty lines too, thanks! – MOnsDaR Sep 05 '13 at 06:54

Griffin · Answer 4 · 2011-08-08T00:06:54.667

5

This will remove any number of blank lines

CTRL + H to replace

Select Extended search mode

replace all \r\n with (space)

then switch to regular expression and replace all \s+ with \n

edited Aug 08 '11 at 00:06

answered Aug 07 '11 at 17:22

Griffin

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score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 21 '13 at 11:42

1

This should get your sorted:

Highlight from the end of the first line, to the very beginning of the third line.
Use the Ctrl + H to bring up the 'Find and Replace' window.
The highlighed region will already be plased in the 'Find' textbox.
Replace with: \r\n
'Replace All' will then remove all the additional line spaces not required.

Here's how it should look: enter image description here

answered Jun 21 '13 at 11:42

Dustin Cook

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Using NP++ 7.8.1 this is the only solution that works for me. I don't understand why I cannot find "\r\n\r\n" used in the many other solutions. – BillDarcy Dec 06 '19 at 20:14

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Aug 07 '11 at 17:17

1

You can record a macro that removes the first blank line, and positions the cursor correctly for the second line. Then you can repeat executing that macro.

answered Aug 07 '11 at 17:17

GolezTrol

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Notepad++ - How can I replace blank lines

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