Google-docs – How to replace a paragraph break (i.e. Enter) with a Shift+Enter character in Google Docs

Update 28.02.2016

They seem to have updated the possible keyboard shortcuts. With the new keyboard shortcuts, it also works now on my keyboard with the German layout.

For Windows:

For OS X:

Source: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/179738?hl=en

Original answer

I found a workaround.

1. Select a piece of text in the document.
2. Ctrl+Alt+H opens the Help menu.
3. Arrow down puts the focus in the Search all menus menu.
4. Type "cour", hit Enter.

This can be done with the script given below. Enter it under Tools > Script Editor, and run. It will replace any amount of whitespace at the beginning of a paragraph with a single tab. Other whitespace will remain untouched.

function spaces2tabs() {  
  var paras = DocumentApp.getActiveDocument().getBody().getParagraphs();
  for (var i = 0 ; i < paras.length; i++) {
    paras[i].replaceText("^\\s+", "\t");
  }
}