replacing strings in emacs with new lines

I was trying to export my thesis from omni-outliner into tex format so I could make my thesis purtty. Annoyingly, when omni-outlier exports to plain text format it does not add any spaces between sections (at least not as far as I could manage).

My solution - replace the characters that indicate new sections with new line characters in emacs.

A quick google brought be to this somewhat helpful page: http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/008872.html

The answer is -
1. open preferences in omni-outliner
2. under the 'text' tab - set the bullet symbols to all be '***'
3. return to your document and select 'file>export' from the menus
4. select 'Plain text (fixed width)' as the file format and click save
5. open your exported txt file in emacs
6. type M-x (i.e., press the 'x' key while holding the 'alt' key), this will bring up a prompt at the bottom of the emacs window.
7. type 'replace-string' and hit enter, this will bring up the prompt "Replace string:"
8. type '***' and hit enter to define the string to be replaced
9. type C-q C-j (i.e., press the 'q' key while holding the 'ctrl' key, nothing will visible happen, don't worry. Then press the 'j' key while holding the 'ctrl' key. Before you know it, all of the '***' have been replaced by newlines, nothing else needed!).