[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

This is actually quite easy provided your blank line is an empty paragraph.
Use Replace to replace ^p (a paragraph break) with ^l (a line break). Then
replace ^l^l (two line breaks) with ^p. Then use Table | Convert | Text to
Table to convert, separating at paragraph marks and specifying the desired
number of columns (assumed to be one). This will give you each description
in a single cell. You can then replace ^l with ^p if desired.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Jo McKenzie" Jo wrote in message
...
Hi, I have a large Word (2003) document consisting of item descriptions.
Most
descriptions are more than a line long and each are separated by an empty
line. I'd like to turn this into a table, but converting to table merely
splits each separate line into a cell. I'd like each description to be in
one
cell. Is there any way to create a table where Word uses an empty line to
mark each cell extent? Here's an e.g. of the data:

150 Yoke shafted and hump backed pin. Shank tapers to fine point and
has rounded section. Displays general polish. (Ill. ).
Context: Period VI: S Entrance; Middle Ditch E Terminal; laminated
midden and weathered materials. Length: 69 mm.

151 Yoke shouldered and slightly hump backed pin. Shank tapers to
point and has squarish section. Displays general polish. (Ill. ).
Context: Period VI/VII: S Terminal of Outer Ditch in E Entrance Area
Length: 61 mm.

The data has originally come from an old text file converted into Word,
therefore there are sometimes odd spacings between text characters and the
numbers you see at the beginning of each record - which I'm sure may make
it
more difficult to do what I want to do.

I'd like the data to go into excel eventually, so any suggestions
involving
taking the data straight into excel would be welcome too.

Thanks very very much if someone could help!

cheers,

Jo