Search and replace: not printable/special characters

Question

I have a question. Does anybody know of a way to search for, for example, three consecutive spaces and replace them with a tab? Or, if you want to be more general and cover more ground, how can you search a string (optionally, with non-printable characters) and replace it with another string with non-printable characters? 
 
 Possibilities: 
 1.- Search for three spaces and replace them with a tab. IMPOSSIBLE??? 
 2.- Search for a tab and replace them with a normal space. Easily done , using Regex and the input 	. Same can be done with carriage returns, etc. 
 I also know how to search and replace special printable characters such as nonbreaking space (ALT+255), but for nonprintable characters, I am completely at loss. But there MUST be a way!!!

Bruce Campbell · Accepted Answer

Hi Ignacio, 
 
To put a tab character into the replace field of the Find and Replace dialogue box, just find a tab character anywhere in the file, copy it and paste it into the replace field. 
 
The same works for non-breaking spaces, line breaks, etc. Just find one in your file, and copy and paste it into the replace field of the Find and Replace dialogue box. It might not look like the character is in the field, but it works. 
 
If you can't find the character anywhere, then just type it into any target segment, cut it from the segment and paste it into the replace field. 
 
This might not work with some special characters, but the ones I have tried worked :-) 
 
Hope this helps, 
Bruce Campbell 
ASAP Language Services

Paul · Answer

Hi Ignacio Niveiro , 
 
This is probably deliberate because a carriage return would be a paragraph break for Studio representing a new segment. Try with a line feed rather than a carriage return. That works fine. 
 
Regards 
 
Paul

Trados Studio > 1. Trados Studio

Search and replace: not printable/special characters