Use of multiple-character delimiters under Text To Columns

[longtalker]

Hey everyone, I have data in the form of several rows, each of which has several words separated by ": " (colon + space) I would like each word separated in its own column, and have therefore used the Text To Columns command (under Data|Data Tools). But apparently you can only define one character as the delimiter, and if I define it to be just the colon, then I have a space at the beginning of each word. I know I can probably do a few extra steps to ge rid of that leading space, but my question is: can one define more than one character as a delimiter, under the Text To Columns command? Anticipated thanks for any help!

 

[texasalynn]

why not before doing the text to columns do a find/replace
find: ": "
Replace ":"

without the quotations

 

[VoG]

Tick Space and : and tick treat 'Treat consecutive delimiters as one'.

 

[longtalker]

Thanks both for your suggestions!