Ah, that is what I was trying to do using

$ts_box->FindAndReplaceAll(-regexp, -nocase, "[\n]", " ");
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I tried several variations but although they matched a normal character I could never get it to match the \n

Your tightening doesn't unfortunately apply to my actual code because there are other tests made in the bad check loop and $cnt is used for other stuff too. But thanks, I hadn't thought of pulling the string out of the widget to work on it and then putting it back.