Known Participant

Question

Hidden character dot madness!

Forum|Forum|6 months ago
September 18, 2025
3 replies
374 views

No matter what I do in find/replace in either text or GREP, I cant seem to find a way of getting rid of these hidden characters without manaully deleting. On a 50 page mail merge document, this simply is a real pain.

Importing from a cleaned CSV file and can replace other hidden characters.

How to

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

A hair space can look like this with Show Hidden Characters turned on (the symbol is in blue):

Mike Witherell

Community Expert

^| translates to a hair space in the Text tab of Find/Change

In the GREP tab of Find/Change, the same character should appear as ~|

Your example looks like two hair spaces followed by a spacebar space (probably) followed by a repeat of the same

Mike Witherell

M

MacUtopiaMojoAuthor

Known Participant

Yes, this is wht it shows in GREP... But when I then go to search, having pasted in the hidden characters, it says Cannot find match.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

A GREP Search does not work. You MUST USE plain text and <feff>

M

MacUtopiaMojoAuthor

Known Participant

Oh, and if I copy and paste out the characters I get the following:

aniri5j9ox8tw2ln

Legend

And it doesn't work if you insert this hidden characters in the Find what mask and replace it with a normal space at Change to?

M

MacUtopiaMojoAuthor

Known Participant

Nope, just says it cant find it. Cant even find a small part of it either. Its as if the characters are there, but then cant be found.

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