Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Word 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Word, click here: Finding Fields.

Finding Fields

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated August 4, 2020)
This tip applies to Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003


1

There may be times when you are working in a document and you want to search for fields that the document may contain. There are two very easy ways you can do this. The first is to go to the beginning of the document and simply press the F11 key. This causes Word to jump to the next field in the document, regardless of what that field does.

While this may work great if you have only a couple of fields in a document, you can also use the Search capabilities in Word to search for fields. You do that by following these steps:

  1. Press Alt+F9. This makes all the field codes in your document visible, instead of the results of those fields.
  2. Choose Find from the Edit menu, or simply press Ctrl+F. Word displays the Find dialog box.
  3. In the Find What box, enter ^d as what you are searching for (make sure you use a lowercase d). This is the code that Word understands as "any field."
  4. Click on Find Next. Word locates the next occurrence of a field.

Notice step 1, which is required to make this method of searching for fields work. If you don't display the field codes, Word can't find the fields. Of course, you can always use the F11 method, which works whether they are displayed or not. (This seems very inconsistent to me. A field is a field, and should be found when searching for a field, whether it is displayed or not.)

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1112) applies to Microsoft Word 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Word (Word 2007 and later) here: Finding Fields.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Inserting a Cross-Reference to Text

Cross-referencing is a great feature of Word that allows you to add references to text in various places of your ...

Discover More

Using Drag-and-Drop to Create a Hyperlink

If you open workbooks in two instances of Excel, you can use drag-and-drop techniques to create hyperlinks from one ...

Discover More

Updating a Field in a Text Box

If you put a field into a text box, you might be surprised to find that it doesn't update when you try to update all your ...

Discover More

Comprehensive VBA Guide Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the language used for writing macros in all Office programs. This complete guide shows both professionals and novices how to master VBA in order to customize the entire Office suite for their needs. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2010 today!

More WordTips (menu)

Inserting the Name of the Last Person to Save the Document

Who saved the document the last time? Word keeps track of that information, and you can insert the person's name into the ...

Discover More

Jumping Between Fields

Need to step through the fields in a document? It's easy using the shortcuts detailed in this tip.

Discover More

Word and Character Count Information

Using fields you can easily insert both the word and character counts for a document into the document itself. As those ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is four minus 0?

2017-02-26 20:29:01

Skip

I need to search in Word for all italic type and replace the start and end italics with XML tags. Is there a way to do this globally on a large document?


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the menu interface (Word 97, Word 2000, Word 2002, or Word 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.