How to remove tab stops at one shot after importing a word document

[parag_84]

HI everyone,

This is my first post in Framemaker Community as I am moving from RH to FM.

I have an issue with respect to importing word documents to Framemaker.

After I have import a word to doc to FM multiple tab stops are created.

Now, although I remove the tab stops manually once, If I place my mouse in the next line , the tab stops are seen again.

Is there any shortcut wherein I can remove tab stops at one go after I import a word document in Framemaker.

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Parag

[Bob_Niland]

Edit > Find / Change

Find: Text: [ \x08 ]

Change To Text: [ \x20 ]

<*> Document

[ Change All ]

This would change all tabs to ordinary spaces. You can actually just type a tab and space character, but I used the hex notation so you see what you're doing. The space could be any other character(s) you desire, or no characters at all (make sure the To Text: field is empty).

Hex codes?

Found here on one of my installs:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\FrameMaker9\Documents\Character_Sets.pdf

[Fightergator]

Bob...you never know when one of these will come in handy to someone.  Working with table someone left a couple of extra tabs in and couldn't simply delete them.  Found your post and used Find/Change to do the job. Thanks.  

[Bob_Niland]

Looking at the original [2014] question again, my answer only removes actual tab characters [␉] from the document. It does nothing for any tab Stops defined (or overriden into by import) in the paragraph formats.

If there's a method of bulk deleting paragraph tab stops, it doesn't immediately come to mind. And it might not be a wise thing to do, as tabs are commonly used for list bullet/counter set-off/indent.

[Fightergator]

The erroneous tabs were in a glossary of acronyms, terms, and abbreviations.  Correct format is acronym, tab, tab, definition (with first tab displayed as row of dots).  Apparently one of the editors deleted an acronym and inadvertantly pulled the tab up into the end of the previous definition.  I was unable to simply delete the tab.  Your little routine did the trick, replacing the tab with a space, which I then deleted.  Agree, I wouldn't want to do a bulk change across an entire documents, and these are only rare instanced  Bottomline is that a correct answer to a 2014 post is still useful.