>:%s/,/*nl*/g > > I just tried (in vim) :%s/,/<CTRL-V><CTRL-M>/g The ctrl-V says that the next character is literal, and should not be interpreted. When you press ctrl-M, you'll see a blue colored "^M". That is, 10 keystrokes: : % s / , / ctrl-v ctrl-m / g I'm sure there's a dozen other ways to do it. Alan .