Using a text editor to manipulate files with lines that are thousands of words long seems like a not very good idea to me.
But all you need is two awk one liners to automate such task. Get desired word: awk -v w=1000 -v ORS=' ' -v 'RS= ' 'NR==w { print } ' Replace it with a new value: awk -v w=1000 -v nw='NewValue' -v ORS=' ' -v 'RS= ' 'NR==w { print nw; next } { print } ' And so on for any other similar tasks. A script that prompts you for line and word number, prints it, and lets you enter a new value should be under a dozen lines of rc. uriel On Tue, Mar 3, 2009 at 5:31 PM, roger peppe <rogpe...@gmail.com> wrote: > 2009/3/3 Russ Cox <r...@swtch.com>: >> s/<tab>/\n/g >> .-0+1000 >> u >> >> that will show you what the 1000th word is, and then you >> can go back to it after the undo. It's not ideal, but you asked. > > watch out though... that actually takes you to the 1001st word! > >