Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Strip Trailing Spaces.
Maybe I'm one of those compulsive-obsessive types, but I always go through my documents to make sure there are no trailing spaces at the end of a line. This makes the document neater and smaller. If you format ASCII files or documents you receive from other people, you will need to search for trailing spaces and remove them as you format the file for Word. The following macro, StripSpaces, will take out all spaces before paragraph marks and manual line breaks throughout your document.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: 
Sub StripSpaces()
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Find.ClearFormatting
Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting
With Selection.Find
.Text = " ^p"
.Replacement.Text = "^p"
.Forward = True
.Wrap = wdFindContinue
.Format = False
.MatchWholeWord = False
.MatchWildcards = False
End With
Selection.Find.Execute
While Selection.Find.Found
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
Selection.Find.Execute
Wend
Selection.Find.Text = " ^l"
Selection.Find.Replacement.Text = "^l"
Selection.Find.Execute
While Selection.Find.Found
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
Selection.Find.Execute
Wend
End Sub
Note:
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (969) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Strip Trailing Spaces.
Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!
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2022-05-24 10:06:10
Gergely Gyarmati
Works great, except if, for whatever reason, there are many consecutive spaces at the end of a line. In such case this macro simply crashes Word. To avoid this problem simply used replace and I changed the macro to use wildcards and find 1-10 consecutive spaces. Because of the wildcard ^p won't work anymore so ^13 and ^11 have to be used instead.
A problem that remains is that spaces at the end of cells won't be deleted in either case because there's no paragraph mark, only an end of cell mark, which can't be replaced. Any solutions for that?
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