Remove manuscript line numbering that was manually set

[Jeffrey_Smith]

I have a long Word document that I'm importing into Indesign. The issue is the document has manually set line numbering that I need to remove throughout entire document. The line numbering is not applied with function in Word, where I could easily turn off, I've checked.

I thought about searching and replacing numerals, but there are plenty of numerals that I need to keep.

I tried selecting (while holding option/alt) in Word, where you can select non-continous text, no luck.

Looking for any suggestions to make task easier. TIA

Example of Line Numbering. Note: The numbering in my doc is not bold, like example.

[Mike Bro]

Hello @Jeffrey_Smith,

Re: I thought about searching and replacing numerals, but there are plenty of numerals that I need to keep.

You could still try this method if the numbering you want to remove has a set number of trailing white spaces, something like this should work.....

\d\s{2}

Just set the number of spaces to fit your needs in the Find/Change>grep option along with whatever you want to replace with; i.e. nothing, spaces...etc.

Regards,

Mike

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Hi Mike, there is one space after numbering. If there was something like a tab, or 2 spaces this might work. The document appears as though it was scanned, then OCR text recogized. And basically a horrible mess for editing.

[Barb Binder]

Hi @Jeffrey_Smith :

Aren't the numbers in their own threaded text frame, running alongside of the main threaded text?

That is not clear from your screenshot since frame edges are not visible. What's also not clear is if they are on the master or on body pages. But wherever they are (master or body), you should be able to click an insertion point inside the narrow frame, Edit > Select All and press Delete. Unless the frames are locked in which case you need to unlock the frames (or perhaps the layer) and then proceed. 

I just reread your post and realize the numbering is in the Word doc, not in the InDesign doc. So are there line breaks in front of the numbers and tabs afterwards? We can use that pattern with a GREP find/change. Can you share the screenshot again with the Word ¶ button enabled?

~Barb

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Hi Barb,  the file is a Word document, however it will be imported into Indesign for layout and proper styling. I don't need the line numbering for final document. But I do need to remove it, and whether I do this in Word, or Indesign, I am looking for an automatted process.

Some additonal notes after looking into file, it most likely was scanned, then OCR text recognized. And this is the reason the line numbering is inline flowing with text.

[Abambo]

I suppose you can't redo the OCR by excluding the line numbers?

[James Gifford—NitroPress · Accepted solution]

Looking at the example and the answers so far, I infer that the line structure is:

• [line number][space][line text][paragraph end]

?

That is, the whole doc is composed of individual lines, each ended with a paragraph return?

Are there two paragraph returns between the visual 'paragraphs'?

I'd use a series of Word macros and search/replace to:

1. Remove the numbers and leading space from each line. (Macro, or search string with wildcards.)
2. Turn the double paragraph returns to a placeholder block like [%RETURN%].
3. Turn all remaining paragraph returns to spaces.
4. Turn the marker [%RETURN%] back to a single paragraph return.

2-4 are, or should be, single search/replace operations. 1 can be automated or you can just hit the macro key continuously, monitoring the progress to make sure nothing gets broken. A little tedious, but could be made to loop automatically.

This should leave you with a slightly rough Word doc you can either further edit (and spell check to catch glitches), then import for formatting in ID.

—

[Jeffrey_Smith]

This task was accomplished with some automated searching and replacing with grep, and a lot of manual editing.