Advanced Find and Replace in Microsoft Word

Find and Replace

Advanced find and replace features allow users to search a document according to criteria including case e.g. uppercase, whole words and types of font. The find and replace function can be used to find many elements of a document including paragraph marks and formatted text.

• Open the document you want to work on

• On the Home tab in the Editing group, click on Replace

• Click on More

• Click on the Match Case checkbox

• In the Find What text box type in the word you want to replace

• In the Replace With text box type the word you want to replace it with

• The search will only find a match that has the same lowercase lettering and will replace each instance of that word within the document

Finding Whole Words

Users can find whole words in a document and replace them with another whole word of their choice. This is useful if you want to find an exact match in a document. Rather than searching for text with the beginning of a word and coming up with several results, searching for whole words allows users to locate every instance of a word in a document and replace it with an alternative.

• In the Find What text box, type in the word you want to replace

• In the Replace With text box, type in the word you want to replace it with

• Select the Find Whole Words Only checkbox

• Click on Replace All

• Only whole words matching the search will be replaced

Replacing Types of Font

Users can search a document for certain types of font and replace it with another type of font. This is a fast way of changing fonts within a document and can save time when involved in repetitive tasks.

• In the Find and Replace dialog box, click on Format then Font

• On the Font tab, choose Times New Roman

• Click OK

• In the Find What text box, type in the word you want to replace

• In the Replace With text box, type in the word you want to replace it with

• Click on Replace

• Only text that is in the Times New Roman font will be replaced

• Save the document

Finding Paragraph Marks

When you press the Enter key, paragraph marks appear if the Show/Hide feature is turned on. Users can find these marks and replace them with alternative marks such as indents.

• In the Find and Replace dialog box, click on the Find tab

• Click on the Special button then Paragraph Mark

• Click on Find Next

• Microsoft Word will search for any paragraph marks in the text