A file based on: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/20456011/delete-whitespace-characters-in-quoted-columns-in-tab-separated-file/20457048?noredirect=1#20457048

cleaner_tabs.py

import re
import sys

_, infile, outfile = sys.argv

s_pat_row = r'''
    "([^"]+)"          # match column; this is group 1
    \s*\t\s*           # match separating tab and any optional white space
    ([^\t]+)           # match a string of non-tab chars; this is group 2
    \s*\t\s*           # match separating tab and any optional white space
    "((?:\\"|[^"])*)"  # match string data that can include escaped quotes
'''

pat_row = re.compile(s_pat_row, re.MULTILINE|re.VERBOSE)

s_pat_clean = r'''[\x01-\x1f\x7f]'''
pat_clean = re.compile(s_pat_clean)

row_template = '"{}",{},"{}"\n'

with open(infile, "rt") as inf, open(outfile, "wt") as outf:
    data = inf.read()
    for m in re.finditer(pat_row, data):
        row = m.groups()
        cleaned = re.sub(pat_clean, ' ', row[2])
        words = cleaned.split()
        cleaned = ' '.join(words)
        outrow = row_template.format(row[0], row[1], cleaned)
        outf.write(outrow)