the Marvels (and Pitfalls) of Find & Replace

Microsoft Word can locate anywhere in your document: any text, any collection of characters, one or more words, whole sentences, page breaks, etc. Once the text has been found, you can edit it as needed.

To perform Search & Replace operations, you may choose either

Edit Find … (Ctrl + F in Word XP, Cmd+F in Word X)
or Edit Replace … (Ctrl + H in Word XP, Cmd+H in Word X)
or Edit Go To … (Ctrl + G in Word XP, Cmd+G in Word X)

All three commands open the Microsoft Word Find and Replace Dialog Box.

What follows is a detailed explanation of the options presented by this dialog box. To help you navigate quickly to a given section, follow this outline:

What Do You Want to Do?	Where is This Found in the Dialog Box?
find text within a document	the find tab
find text within a document and replace it with different text	the replace tab
find a format code within a document	the find tab, “more” option
find a format code within a document and replace it with a different code	the replace tab, “more” option
deleting text using search and replace	the replace tab
go to a specific position within a document	the go to tab

Finding Text

Choose Edit Find … or Ctrl + F (Windows) or Cmd + F (Macintosh). The Find and Replace Dialog Box will be displayed, the [Find] tab will be preselected.

Using Find without “more” options

enter the text you want to locate in the [Find What] box
- the text may be a letter(s), a word, a phrase, etc.
click(or press <RETURN> or <ENTER>)
- the first occurrence of the entered text will be found and highlighted
- click(or press <ESC>) to close the dialog box and edit your document from this point
- or, to continue finding:
  - clickto find the next occurrence of the entered text
  - or enter different text and clickto find it

	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word XP Find Tab Selected Options Not Selected
	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word X Find Tab Selected Options Not Selected

Using Find with “more” options

The [Find] tab includes additional options to control your search. Click the(Word XP) or(Word X) button to reveal them.

[Search] is a dropdown list to tell Microsoft Word in what direction to search
- [Down]: searches from the point of the cursor to the end of the document
- [Up]: searches from the point of the cursor to the beginning of the document
- [All]: searches the entire document
[Match Case]: check this box if you want Microsoft Word to find text that matches uppercase and lowercase just as you have typed it
[Find Whole Words Only]: check this box to not stop at words that contain the text you have entered (for example, if you check this box and then enter ship, Microsoft Word will stop at ship but not friendship
[Use Wildcards]: select this to use the special wildcard search operators; not for the faint of heart!
- for example, the ? will allow you to search for any single character while the * allows you to search for any string of characters
  - entering s?t finds both sat and set
  - entering s*d finds both sad and started
- after you check the [Use Wildcards] box, you can click thebutton to reveal a list of the wildcard operators
[Sounds Like]: finds words that sound the same as the search text but are spelled differently, such as Kathy and Cathy, and color and colour
[Find All Word Forms]: select this to find all forms of a word. For example with this box checked
- entering chase will not find only chase but also find chase, chased, chasing
- entering make will not only find make but also find makes, made, making
use thebutton to search for formatting codes (e.g. paragraph, font, etc.) as described below
- whenever one or more options are checked, the option(s) selected will be listed under the [Find What] box

	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word XP Find Tab Selected Options Selected
	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word Find Tab Selected Options Selected

Replacing Text

Choose Edit Replace … or Ctrl + H (Windows) or Cmd + H (Macintosh). The Find and Replace Dialog Box will be displayed, the [Replace] tab will be preselected.

Using Replace without “more” options

in the [Find What] box, type the text you want to find
- the text may be a letter(s), a word, a phrase, etc.
in the [Replace with] box, type the text you want to use to replace the original
- the text may be a letter(s), a word, a phrase, etc.
ask yourself this critical question: “Do I want the chance to change my mind before replacing each occurrence of the found text?”
- if yes, then click
  - the first occurrence of the entered text will be found and highlighted; you now have three choices
    - click(or press <ESC>) to close the dialog box and edit your document manually
    - or clickto replace the found text with the text you entered in the [Replace with] box
      - the text will be replaced and the next occurrence of that text will be found
    - or to skip this occurrence and move on to the next matching bit of text click
- if no, then click
  - all occurrences of the entered text are found and replaced automatically, giving you no chance to change your mind
  - this is definitely not for the timid and weak!

	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word XP Replace Tab Selected Options Not Selected
	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word X Replace Tab Selected Options Not Selected

Using Replace with “more” options

All other options and buttons in this dialog box operate the same as the Find dialog box

Finding Invisible Formatting Codes

Interspersed throughout your document are nonprinting, invisible formatting codes that affect the way your document looks and prints. You can also search for these codes.

open the Find dialog box as described above
- click(Word XP) or(Word X) if this section of the dialog box is not revealed
- you may now search click either of two buttons
  - click thebutton to find …
    - from the popup menu, select whether you want to search by
      - [Font]: opens the “Find Font” dialog box enabling you to look for specific occurrence of a font, a particular size, font style, etc.
      - [Paragraph]: opens the “Find Paragraph” dialog box enabling you to search for specific occurrences of paragraph formatting
      - [Tabs]: opens the “Find Tabs” dialog box enabling you to search for specific occurrences of tab stops, tab leaders, etc.
      - [Language]: opens the “Find Language” dialog box enabling you to search for text by language
      - [Frame]: opens the “Find Frame” dialog box enabling you to search for occurrences of frames within your document (graphics inserted in text is an example of a frame)
      - [Style]: opens the “Find Style” dialog box enabling you to search for particular occurrences of styles (a style is a collection of formatting characteristics that define how a block of text is treated)
      - [Highlight]: searches for text that has been highlighted using the Highlight button(Word XP) or(Word X) on the Formatting toolbar
  - or clickto find …
    - from the popup menu, select the special character you want to search for

Replacing Invisible Formatting Codes

Interspersed throughout your document are nonprinting, invisible formatting codes that affect the way your document looks and prints. You can also search for these codes and replace them with different codes.

open the Replace dialog box as described above
click(Word XP) or(Word X) if this section of the dialog box is not revealed

At this point the search and replace operation has the same options as describe above for the finding invisible codes. The difference is that you can find one type of formatting and replace it with a different type of formatting. Consider these two examples:

To replace underlining with italic …
- click in the [Find What] box
- click on thebutton
- choose [Font]
- choose the underlining formatting in the Find Font Dialog box
- then click in the [Replace With] box
- choose [Font]
- choose the italics formatting in the Find Font Dialog box
- now clickto initiate the search and replace procedure
- each occurrence of underlining will be found and you will have the opportunity to replace it with italics (remember the differences betweenand)
To replace a phrase, for example Scott County, in one font, for example Arial, with a different phrase, for example Harrison County, in a different font, for example Times New Roman …
- click in the [Find What] box and type Scott County
- click on thebutton
- choose [Font]
- choose Arial in the Find Font Dialog box
- click in the [Replace With] box and type Harrison County
- click on thebutton
- choose [Font]
- choose Times New Roman in the Find Font Dialog box
- now clickto initiate the search and replace procedure
- each occurrence of Scott County in Arial will be found and you will have the opportunity to replace it with Harrison County in Times New Roman (remember the differences betweenand)
- any occurrence of Scott County in any other font will not be found!

Deleting Text using Find & Replace

If you do not type anything in the [Replace with] box, Microsoft Word's Replace command systematically deletes all of the [Find What]'s. As useful as this sounds, it is rife with danger, so be sure to clickand thenandnot!!!

The Go To Tab

This command enables you to “Go to” a specific page, bookmark, footnote, table, comment, graphic, or other location within your document.

Choose Edit Go To … or Ctrl + G (Windows) or Cmd + G (Macintosh). The Find and Replace Dialog Box will be displayed, the [Go To] tab will be preselected.

in the [Go to what] box, select the type of item from the scrolling list
- to go to a specific item, type the name or number of the item in the [Enter �] box
  - the name of the box changes depending upon what is selected in the [Go to what] box
    - for example, with Page selected, the box will read Enter page number
    - for example, with Section selected, the box will read Enter section number
  - then click
- to go to the next or previous item of the same type, leave the Enter box empty, and then click or

	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word XP Go To Tab Selected
	The Fine and Replace Dialog Box Word XP Go To Tab Selected