* Something like this might do it:

tr "\n" "\",\"" < file > newfile

sed -e "s/\",\"* /\n\",\"*/g" newfile > blah.csv

On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 1:44 AM, Andrew <heartsayer@gmail.com> wrote:

> Example:
>
> * Micro topic 1
> ** Microbes are small
> ** You can't see them!
> *** Isn't that something?
> * Micro topic 2
> ** I hope I like the teacher
> *** She will be great!
> ** Micro is cool!
>
> I'd like to convert them into a .csv file like so:
>
> "* Micro topic 1"," "** Microbes are small", "** You can't see them!", "***
> Isn't that something?",
> "* Micro topic 2", "** I hope I like the teacher", "*** She will be
> great!",
> "** Micro is cool!"
>
> Where the first column contains only top level headings (lines beginning
> with
> one star), and the following columns are subheadings belonging to the top
> level heading.  So for each top level heading, there is one row containing
> the top level heading and its children.  I've been messing around with a
> solution in python with regular expressions as well as macros but haven't
> gotten very far.  Any suggestions?
>
>
>
>