Regex Find and Replace - Spaces

essayhead · 08-10-2012, 06:54 PM

Hi all, I have a quick Regex question. I converted a crappy PDF into HTML and then into EPUB. So I was cleaning it up in Sigil and realized that there are some issues with the text itself. There are a bunch of words that have been shoved together without any spaces, but there's generally a pattern--they show up when prepositions are in front of proper names. Namely, I can tell what most of them are by running

[a-z][A-Z]

in the Find box with Regex. Now the question is, what is the correct way for me to insert a space so that "inLondon" becomes "in London" and so on? I've been using Regex to just find them and insert the space manually, but there is a lot of them. And, yes, those errors in the original file as well. So is there a formula that I can put in the Replace box? Or is this just not possible at all? I don't know, I honestly just discovered Regex and I'm verrry slowly learning it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

PeterT · 08-10-2012, 07:24 PM

Search for: ([a-z])([A-Z])
Replace by: \1 \2

Note the space between the \1 and the \2

essayhead · 08-10-2012, 07:41 PM

Thank you so much! This also clears up something I wasn't quite understanding with another code of mine. Thanks again!

08-10-2012, 06:54 PM	#1
essayhead Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2012 Device: Nook	Regex Find and Replace - Spaces Hi all, I have a quick Regex question. I converted a crappy PDF into HTML and then into EPUB. So I was cleaning it up in Sigil and realized that there are some issues with the text itself. There are a bunch of words that have been shoved together without any spaces, but there's generally a pattern--they show up when prepositions are in front of proper names. Namely, I can tell what most of them are by running [a-z][A-Z] in the Find box with Regex. Now the question is, what is the correct way for me to insert a space so that "inLondon" becomes "in London" and so on? I've been using Regex to just find them and insert the space manually, but there is a lot of them. And, yes, those errors in the original file as well. So is there a formula that I can put in the Replace box? Or is this just not possible at all? I don't know, I honestly just discovered Regex and I'm verrry slowly learning it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

08-10-2012, 07:24 PM	#2
PeterT Wizard Posts: 4,189 Karma: 31946890 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Wifi (mine); Touch (wife + mine); iTouch (wife)	Search for: ([a-z])([A-Z]) Replace by: \1 \2 Note the space between the \1 and the \2 __________________ Peter

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08-10-2012, 07:41 PM	#3
essayhead Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 10 Join Date: Aug 2012 Device: Nook	Thank you so much! This also clears up something I wasn't quite understanding with another code of mine. Thanks again!


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