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What is the "soft return" symbol when trying to replace it with a Hard return.

Anonymous
2025-01-20T01:40:47+00:00

Thanks I get you are a volunteer and thanks I understand you are here to help, so no need to say this - I appreciate you time.

I am trying to get rid of these 'soft returns' with the 'Find/Replace' option in word. I know ^p is for a hard retrun what is the symbol for a soft return?

I have looked for years to find this, so I assume MS don't have a symbol to use.

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  1. Paul Edstein 82,861 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-01-20T01:53:01+00:00

    Paragraph break = ^p

    Line break = ^l

    Non-breaking space = ^s

    tab = ^t

    If you go to the Find dialogue and choose More > Special, you'll see a list to choose from. When you choose from that list, Word will insert the appropriate character set into the Find/Replace dialogue.

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  1. Jay Freedman 207.6K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2025-01-20T13:16:19+00:00

    The circle represents a non-breaking space. As macropod mentioned, you can use the code ^s in the Find dialog to search for it.

    For other things that appear when you display non-printing characters, see http://wordfaqs.ssbarnhill.com/NonprintChars.htm

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-01-20T12:48:39+00:00

    Thanks heaps for this, I genuinely appreciate your knowledge and sharing, cheers.

    One more thing the little circle. What is this? Thanks again.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-03-06T02:01:49+00:00

    It is ^l

    (found this by going under "special" and choosing "manual line break")

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-01-22T12:36:53+00:00

    Thanks heaps, and for the excellent link, cheers

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