Help with Changing Comma-Separated Text to a List [in a Specific Way]

[theALmighty66]

Hi!

I use Google Docs at work. What I'm trying to do is modify something from a comma separated list to a bulleted, PLAIN TEXT list. The best way I can describe it is this:

Value A, Value B, Value C

to

- Value A
- Value B
- Value C​

​

Notice that I need to replace the commas with both line breaks AND en dashes. There seems to be no simple instant formatting tool online that I've come across.​

​

Any help?

Thank you! 8^)​

 

[Lufbrarunner]

A similar question on Stack Overflow Link which may point you in the right direction.

 

[theALmighty66]

Well. Not quite that. But thank you!

 

[Nukeban]

I'm using old text editing software called TextWrangler which can do search and replace like that. I think they've long since updated it to BBEdit which I presume is even better.

Can you export your Google Doc to plain text? If yes, I'll take a shot at it if you want.

Perl is also very good at such things, but learning that to do this would be overkill.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I have written a small Python script to accomplish what you require, I guess I could add that to an automator script, if that would help.

 

[theALmighty66]

Thanks very much to both of you! Sorry I hadn't replied sooner. I've been exploring different combos & trying to simplify the process before saying further about this.

All right, to backtrack a little & hopefully make this easier ...

Is there a way to simply add dashes (en dashes) at the start of each new line without relying on a bulleted list--effective replacing line breaks with a line break and a minus sign?

THAT would be mega-helpful!

Thanks either way!!

 

[TonyAguila]

That’s what TextWrangler/BBEdit can do using Find/Replace. You might need some rudimentary knowledge of Grep, but whatever terms you might need are easily available in the built-in Help. Once you have set up the Find/Replace fields, one click will perform the task in mere seconds, the only caveat being that there be no extraneous commas elsewhere, which shouldn’t be the case with a comma-delimited file.

The Find field will be “\, ” (less the quote marks)

The Replace field will be “\r– ” (note also the spaces at the end, per your example)

“Grep” and “Wrap around” should be checked.

Note also that an EN-dash is different from a hyphen. To generate an EN-dash in BBEdit, or in most other apps, the keystroke is [option-hyphen] (less the brackets).

 

[Bayer]

Have you tried the create Table facility? (a) Convert text to table (choose 1 column), (b) convert table back to text, this gives you a list) (c) convert to a bulleted list (you can also choose the bullet you want). Sorry, I don't know whether this is the answer you are looking for.