How can I change a list of plain lines into headlines/TODO items?

Question

If I paste in a block of text composed of separated lines, is there any way to convert each of those lines into either headlines or TODO list items? So:

item
item
item

becomes:

* item
* item
* item

without my having to type [Meta][Return] at the begging of each line?

score 13 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 11 '11 at 19:18

13

With a default org-mode configuration, select your lines up to and including the newline at the end of the last line, and do M-x org-toggle-heading. With a prefix argument, it tells org-mode how many levels in it should make the heading (C-u 4 M-x org-toggle-heading)

answered Jul 11 '11 at 19:18

jdd

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11

This command is bound to `C-c *`. A similar command turns lines into plain list items (bound to `C-c -`. – Juancho Jul 11 '11 at 23:11

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 11 '11 at 17:59

2

For example with following command:

M-x query-replace-regex RET ^\(.*\)$ RET * \1 RET

answered Jul 11 '11 at 17:59

Alex Ott

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No facny org-mode way then? I just have to come up with a good regexp-replace and bind it somewhere? – Dmitri Jul 11 '11 at 18:06
really don't know... never converted a lot of documents into .org format – Alex Ott Jul 11 '11 at 18:12

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 11 '11 at 19:09

Select your three lines, and while your cursor is on the first column of the fourth line type C-xrt*SPACERET. This calls the string-rectangle to insert the string *[space] in the vertical selection delimited by the mark and the cursor (i.e., the first column). C-xrt is a very useful command when editing aligned text.

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 01 '13 at 16:54

0

To convert the line prefix from a Workflowy export (0-n leading spaces followed by a single -):

M-x replace-regexp RET ^ *- RET \,(make-string (length \&) ?*)

answered Mar 01 '13 at 16:54

vdm

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How can I change a list of plain lines into headlines/TODO items?

4 Answers4