Find and replace text or other items

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Use Microsoft Office Word to find and replace text, formatting, paragraph marks, page breaks , and other items. You can also find and replace noun or adjective forms or verb tenses.

You can extend your search by using wildcards and codes to find words or phrases that contain specific letters or combinations of letters.What do you want to do?

Find text

Find and replace text

Find and highlight text on the screen

Find and replace specific formatting

Find and replace paragraph marks, page breaks, and other items

Search by using wildcards to find specific letters

Use codes to find letters, formatting, fields, or special characters

Find text

You can quickly search for every occurrence of a specific word or phrase.

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find.
2. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to search for.
3. Do one of the following:
   • To find each instance of a word or phrase, click Find Next.
   • To find all instances of a specific word or phrase at one time, click Find All, and then click Main Document.

Note To cancel a search in progress, press ESC.

Find and replace text

You can automatically replace a word or phrase with another - for example, you can replace Acme with Apex.

Note The replacement text will use the same capitalization as the text that it replaces. For example, if you search for AKA and replace it with Also known as, the result will be ALSO KNOWN AS.

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Replace.

   

2. Click the Replace tab.
3. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to search for.
4. In the Replace with box, type the replacement text.
5. Do one of the following:
   • To find the next occurrence of the text, click Find Next.
   • To replace an occurrence of the text, click Replace. After you click Replace, Office Word moves to the next occurrence of the text.
   • To replace all occurrences of the text, click Replace All.

Note To cancel a replacement in progress, press ESC.

Find and highlight text on the screen

To help you visually scan a document for every occurrence of a word or phrase, you can search for all occurrences and highlight them on the screen. Although the text is highlighted on the screen, it isn't highlighted when the document is printed.

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find.

   

2. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to search for.
3. Click Reading Highlight, and then click Highlight All.

   Note To turn off highlighting on the screen, click Reading Highlight, and then click Clear Highlighting.

Find and replace specific formatting

You can search for and replace or remove character formatting. For example, you can search for a specific word or phrase and change the font color, or you can search for specific formatting, such as bold, and change it.

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Replace.

   

2. If you don't see the Format button, click More.
3. To search for text with specific formatting, type the text in the Find what box. To find formatting only, leave the box blank.
4. Click Format, and then select the formats that you want to find and replace.
5. Click the Replace with box, click Format, and then select the replacement formats.

   Note If you also want to replace the text, type the replacement text in the Replace with box.

6. To find and replace each instance of the specified formatting, click Find Next, and then click Replace. To replace all instances of the specified formatting, click Replace All.

Find and replace paragraph marks, page breaks, and other items

You can search for and replace special characters and document elements such as tabs and manual page breaks. For example, you can find all double paragraph marks and replace them with single paragraph marks.

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find.

   

2. If you don't see the Special button, click More.
3. Click Special, and then click the item that you want.
4. If you want to replace the item, click the Replace tab, and then type what you want to use as a replacement in the Replace with box.
5. Click Find Next, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

   To cancel a search in progress, press ESC.

   Tip To quickly find items such as graphics or comments , click Select Browse Object on the vertical scroll bar, and then click the item that you want. You can click Next or Previous to find the next or previous item of the same type.

Search by using wildcards to find specific letters

You can use wildcards to search for text. For example, you can use the asterisk (*) wildcard to search for a string of characters (for example, "s*d" finds "sad" and "started").

Use wildcards to find and replace text

1. On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find or Replace.

   

2. Select the Use wildcards check box.

   If you don't see the Use wildcards check box, click More.

3. Do one of the following:
   • To choose a wildcard character from a list, click Special, click a wildcard character, and then type any additional text in the Find what box. For more information, see the table Wildcards for items you want to find and replace.
   • Type a wildcard character directly in the Find what box. For more information, see the table Wildcards for items you want to find and replace.
4. If you want to replace the item, click the Replace tab, and then type what you want to use as a replacement in the Replace with box.
5. Click Find Next, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

   To cancel a search in progress, press ESC.

Wildcards for items you want to find and replace

Notes:

• When the Use wildcards check box is selected, Word finds only the exact text that you specify. Notice that the Match case and Find whole words only check boxes are unavailable (dimmed) to indicate that these options are automatically turned on. You can't turn off these options.
• To search for a character that's defined as a wildcard, type a backslash (\) before the character. For example, type \? to find a question mark.
• You can use parentheses to group the wildcard characters and text and to indicate the order of evaluation. For example, type <(pre)*(ed)> to find "presorted" and "prevented".
• You can use the \n wildcard to search for an expression and then replace it with the rearranged expression. For example, type (Ashton) (Chris) in the Find what box and \2 \1 in the Replace with box. Word will find Ashton Chris and replace it with Chris Ashton.

Use codes to find letters, formatting, fields, or special characters

Use the following codes to find letters, formatting, fields, or special characters. Note that some codes work only if the Use wildcards option is turned on or off.

Codes that work in the Find what box or Replace with box

To find	Type
Paragraph mark ( )	^p (doesn't work in the Find what box when the Use wildcards option is turned on), or ^13
Tab character ( )	^t or ^9
ASCII character	^nnn, where nnn is the character code.
ANSI character	^0nnn, where 0 is zero and nnn is the character code
Em dash ( - )	^+
En dash ( - )	^=
Caret character	^^
Manual line break ( )	^l or ^11
Column break	^n or ^14
Page or section break	^12 (when replacing, inserts a page break)
Manual page break	^m (also finds or replaces section breaks when the Use wildcards option is turned on)
Nonbreaking space ( )	^s
Nonbreaking hyphen ( )	^~
Optional hyphen ( )	^-

Code that works in the Find what box only (when Use wildcards is turned on)

Codes that work in the Find what box only (when Use wildcards is turned off)

Codes that work in the Replace with box only