Word has some great features, many of which most of us don’t even know they exist.  In this post, we are going to look at the feature of Find and Replace using Wildcards to replace spaces with a Tab.

Our goal is to quickly replaces spaces in the image below with tabs.

The desired outcome is the spaces are replaced with tabs however, we don’t want to replace the 3 spaces at the front being used to “indent” the 2 lines.

Using Find and Replace

To do this, we are going to use the Find and Replace function in Word.  Open the wizard with CTRL + h.  You will need to select More>> to reveal the additional Options.

Here are the settings:

• Find What  ( ){4,}  – finds spaces where there are 4 or more side by side.  Note there is a space in the middle of ( )
• Replace with ^t  – replaces the spaces with a tab
• Use wildcards  is selected – this MUST BE selected

If you are extremely confident, you can use Replace All. I would suggest using Find Next and Replace if you have any doubts at all.