I’m working with multiple Google Docs files that contain tons of bulleted lists (around 1000+ items across 20 documents). Each bullet point uses a dash symbol “-” as the bullet marker.
My goal: I want to add an extra blank line before each dash bullet to make the content more readable on phones and tablets.
What I need: A way to find each newline character that comes right before a dash bullet and replace it with two newline characters instead.
In MS Word I could search for something like ^p- and replace with ^p^p- but I can’t figure out the Google Docs equivalent. Does anyone know the right regex pattern or find/replace syntax to accomplish this in Google Docs?
These solutions work, but you’ll have to repeat them manually every time you get new documents.
I handle this at work constantly. Manual export/import gets old fast when you’re dealing with document formatting regularly. Custom scripts break whenever Google changes their API.
You want a workflow that connects directly to Google Drive, processes your docs with proper regex support, and handles formatting automatically.
Set it up once to find \n- patterns and replace with \n\n- across your entire collection. It runs whenever you add new docs to a folder - no more thinking about mobile formatting.
The workflow can handle other mobile optimizations too, like adjusting spacing around headers or fixing paragraph breaks. Way cleaner than juggling different tools or writing throwaway scripts.
Latenode handles Google Docs integration perfectly for this bulk processing: https://latenode.com
Had this exact problem reformatting client docs for mobile. Google Docs’ find/replace is garbage compared to Word’s regex features. I ended up using Google Apps Script instead of fighting with their basic tools. Just write a quick script that loops through your docs and uses regex to find line breaks + dashes, then swaps them for double breaks + dash. It’ll churn through all 20 docs automatically - no need to open each one. Takes some setup but way better for bulk jobs. Whole thing runs in like 30 seconds.
Google Docs doesn’t have regex like Word does, so bulk formatting across multiple docs is a nightmare.
I faced the same hell formatting hundreds of documents for mobile. Instead of wrestling with Google Docs, I built an automation for exactly this kind of bulk text work.
It pulls content from your Google Docs, processes the text to add line breaks before dash bullets using real regex, then updates everything automatically. Run it on all 20 documents at once instead of manual find-replace in each file.
For you, it’d search for \n- and replace with \n\n- across all docs simultaneously. Takes 2 minutes to set up, saves hours of grunt work.
You can also handle other mobile formatting changes in the same run. Way better than Google Docs’ built-in tools.
Google Docs find and replace doesn’t handle paragraph breaks like Word does. I hit this same wall last year while reformatting technical docs. Here’s what worked: copy everything into Google Sheets first, use the SUBSTITUTE function to make your changes, then paste it back. In Sheets, you can use CHAR(10) for line breaks - try =SUBSTITUTE(A1,CHAR(10)&"-",CHAR(10)&CHAR(10)&"-") for what you need. Or download your docs as .docx files, fix them in Word with your ^p- to ^p^p- method, then re-upload. Kind of tedious with 20 documents, but probably faster than editing by hand. The formatting usually transfers back to Google Docs just fine.
Export everything to plain text files and use notepad++ or any text editor with regex support. Find \n- and replace with \n\n- - done in seconds. Copy paste back into Google Docs. Much easier than dealing with scripts or third-party tools.