This is completely "inside baseball" and likely of little interest, unless you happen to use BBEdit and LaTeX and want to search and replace using GREP. As a side benefit, it gives me a break from actually working on my tenure file!

The basic problem is finding white spaces and then replace them with LaTeX column separators (&), without having BBEdit include the line endings. An example text is:

2015    Spring  4770    1   3.9 4.5 4.4
2015    Spring  2110    3   4.4 4.5 4.4
2015    Fall    4760    1   4.3 4.3 4.3
2015    Fall    2110    2   4.4 4.3 4.3
2016    Winter  3100    3   4.4 4.5 4.4
2016    Winter  3100    2   4.0 4.5 4.4
2016    Spring  2110    2   4.5 4.4 4.4
2016    Spring  2110    3   4.8 4.4 4.4

I could, of course, just use the column copy and paste in BBEdit, but where is the fun in that!

My first inclination was to use

\s*

but that captures the line endings as well, so I turned to my trusted app Patterns and after a bit I settled on

([[:blank:]]*)

which looked like it did what I wanted in Patterns' search and replace window. The problem was that transferring this to BBEdit gave me

& 2 & 0 & 1 & 5     &  & S & p & r & i & n & g   &  & 4 & 7 & 7 & 0     &  & 1    &  & 3 & . & 9  &  & 4 & . & 5  &  & 4 & . & 4 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 5     &  & S & p & r & i & n & g   &  & 2 & 1 & 1 & 0      &  & 3    &  & 4 & . & 4  &  & 4 & . & 5  &  & 4 & . & 4 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 5     &  & F & a & l & l     &  & 4 & 7 & 6 & 0     &  & 1    &  & 4 & . & 3  &  & 4 & . & 3  &  & 4 & . & 3 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 5     &  & F & a & l & l     &  & 2 & 1 & 1 & 0     &  & 2    &  & 4 & . & 4  &  & 4 & . & 3  &  & 4 & . & 3 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 6     &  & W & i & n & t & e & r   &  & 3 & 1 & 0 & 0     &  & 3    &  & 4 & . & 4  &  & 4 & . & 5  &  & 4 & . & 4 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 6     &  & W & i & n & t & e & r   &  & 3 & 1 & 0 & 0     &  & 2    &  & 4 & . & 0  &  & 4 & . & 5  &  & 4 & . & 4 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 6     &  & S & p & r & i & n & g   &  & 2 & 1 & 1 & 0     &  & 2    &  & 4 & . & 5  &  & 4 & . & 4  &  & 4 & . & 4 & 
 & 2 & 0 & 1 & 6     &  & S & p & r & i & n & g   &  & 2 & 1 & 1 & 0     &  & 3    &  & 4 & . & 8  &  & 4 & . & 4  &  & 4 & . & 4 &

which is not exactly what I had in mind! After quite a bit of digging around, thinking that the problem was with posix in BBEdit, I finally figured out that the quantifiers are treated differently in BBEdit than in Patterns. The correct version in BBEdit is

([[:blank:]]+)

Patterns for some reason does not treat "*" as actual zero whereas BBEdit does. Using this and

\1 \&

gave me this beautifully formatted text instead

2015     & Spring   & 4770     & 1    & 3.9  & 4.5  & 4.4
2015     & Spring   & 2110     & 3    & 4.4  & 4.5  & 4.4
2015     & Fall     & 4760     & 1    & 4.3  & 4.3  & 4.3
2015     & Fall     & 2110     & 2    & 4.4  & 4.3  & 4.3
2016     & Winter   & 3100     & 3    & 4.4  & 4.5  & 4.4
2016     & Winter   & 3100     & 2    & 4.0  & 4.5  & 4.4
2016     & Spring   & 2110     & 2    & 4.5  & 4.4  & 4.4
2016     & Spring   & 2110     & 3    & 4.8  & 4.4  & 4.4

Now I just need the end of line symbols (and to make the next 14 tables) and I am done!

By the way, instead of the posix version you could use

([^\S\r\n]+)

The same thing apply with the quantifier.