How to delete specific line in Text elements using ArcPy?

Question

I work with several maps (in folder named "aa") and the text boxes in the layout view are:

enter image description here

I try to delete,using Arcpy, the empty line in the this text properties box

enter image description here

so my result will be one line only:

enter image description here

By the way, i have also an empty line in this text box:

enter image description here

this is my python code:

import arcpy
from arcpy import env
env.workspace = r"G:\desktop\Project\aa"
for mxdname in arcpy.ListFiles("*.mxd"):
 print mxdname
 mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"G:\desktop\Project\aa\\" + mxdname)
 for elm in arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd, "TEXT_ELEMENT"):
 elm.text = elm.text.replace(' ', 'free zn space')
 print 'done'
 mxd.save() 
del mxd

but there no changes in the maps and i get this result:

>>> 
landUse.mxd
done
1
>>> 

• GISGe: The is a extra backslash in your mxd variable. And what if you add a print statement within the for loop?

Answer 1

What is the name of the text element?

The script you have written does not identify what element needs changing.

I would insert this line to find out what the element names are:

for elm in arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd, "TEXT_ELEMENT"):
 print elm.name

Then I would use that to identify which element needs the changing, and then use:

for elm in arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd, "TEXT_ELEMENT"):
 if elm.name == inset_element_name:
 elm.text == elm.text.strip.lstrip()

Please see python text formatting to find out more on how to remove the blank spaces.