This issue is partially threaded in issue 19492 and 30939 but its not express
the urgency of the problem. Should OO be for the mass, i mean at least conquest
10% of the ms-office users, so it is obliged to add a new and simple technique
to find/replace special characters.
for instance to replace 3 enters with one (in ms-office replace ^a^a^a with ^a)
or replace 5 tabs with 12 spaces and so on. regular expressions are great for
the skilly user but not for the mass. so ms-office will still be the best in
this issue. this capabilities give the right to call this text elaboration software.
don't leave regular expressions but FINALLY add a simple manner to replace
special characters!!! like this it is unusable...
i am ashamed not be able to develop software as i would solve this big lack myself.