Selective Formatting using Find and Replace

Summary: The Find and Replace tool in Word allows you to check for formatting in what you search for and use formatting in your replacement text. What it doesn't do is allow you to be selective on which characters of your replacement text have formatting applied. There is a way around this using two passes through Find and Replace, as described in this tip. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.)

Andy had a document that used the phrase "n-day" quite a bit, and he wanted the "n" to be in italics but the rest of the phrase in regular type. Faced with the task of making the desired formatting change many times over, Andy searched around for a solution using Word's Find and Replace tool.

Andy could search for "n-day" with no problem. However, there was a problem when trying to change jus the "n" to italics because Find and Replace only applies formatting changes to the entire Replace With text, not just to selected characters.

The solution was to do a two-pass Find and Replace. In the first pass, Andy changed the entire "n-day" phrase to italics. On the second pass he searched for "-day" (without the "n") and replaced it with a non-italics version. The result was just what he wanted, with only the single character in italics.

Tip #436 applies to Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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Selective Formatting using Find and Replace