How to Remove Carriage Returns in SQL Server Management Studio?
It is a fairly common task, a lot of people manually select and remove carriage returns and new lines, which can take time and is error prone
But you can use find and replace functionality built into SSMS to make the task more efficient
This step by step guide shows you how to use the standard find and replace with a few settings you may not know about
Typically SQL code often starts out looking like this, lets say you have run a Select Top 1000 * from ….
Start by selecting the rows you need to remove the spacing from
Now, press Ctrl+H to bring up the find and replace dialogue box
Next, to remove the new line (invisible) character, we need to type ‘\n’ into the find box
Ensure the second box (Replace) is empty, then click replace all
This has replaced the new line character, but there is also a carriage return character
Repeat the above steps to replace the ‘\r’ (carriage return) with a blank
You can also do the same for the extra spaces that may be left behind too
The end result
Your finished code should look like this
You can watch the video on our You Tube Channel
With these find a replace shortcuts you can easily make your SQL code much more compact to read, without the need to manually remove the spaces and carriage returns in the SQL Server Management Studio SQL editor
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