Re: Refilling paragraphs to remove hard returns?

[ross@rosslaird.info (Ross A. Laird)]

jester@panix.com (Jesse Sheidlower) writes:

> I imagine this is a common problem, so I don't know why I'm
> having so much trouble finding an answer.
>
> Suppose I have a text document that I've worked on in
> text-mode. It is filled using the usual fill tools, so it
> wraps at 72 characters, with a hard return after each line.
> Paragraphs are separated by an extra hard return; there's no
> other indentation.
>
> I now need to give this document to someone who wants to work
> on it in a word processor, who complains that there are hard
> returns after every line. What's the easy way to remove these?
>
> Going forward, I could work on such documents in
> longlines-mode. But it's not clear how to fix what I have. The
> trick mentioned in the Emacs wiki of resetting fill-column to
> a large number and then refilling the region doesn't work,
> because each paragraph is seen as one line, rather than the
> block of text set off by two newlines. Yes, I can regex
> replace all examples of return (not followed by another
> return) with a space, but I'd think there must be something
> more organic.

Instead of using longlines-mode, look into visual-line-mode. It's much
better.

As for un-filling, I use this in my ~/.emacs:

;unfill paragraph
(defun unfill-paragraph ()
  (interactive)
  (let ((fill-column (point-max)))
  (fill-paragraph nil)))
(global-set-key (kbd "<f6>") 'unfill-paragraph)

Works like a charm. I hit F6 and the paragraph is instantly
re-formatted as an Emacs line. If visual-line-mode is on when I do this,
the paragraph is automagically wrapped as well (but with no hard returns).

Ross

-- 
Ross A. Laird, PhD
www.rosslaird.com