Find and Replace

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Find and Replace' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Adding Many No-Width Optional Breaks
One of the special characters you can add in a document is the no-width optional break. Although originally designed for use with non-English languages, the break can be helpful in some situations. Here's how you can add a bunch of those breaks in one commonly used editing task.

Counting a Particular Word
Need to know how many times a particular word appears in a document? Here's a handy trick that will tell you the count, using a tool with which you are already familiar.

Find and Replace in a Column or Row
You can use Word's searching capabilities to search just the information in a table column or row. The trick is to make sure you select the area you want searched, and then change the setting of the Search drop-down list in the Find and Replace dialog.

Find and Replace in Text Boxes
Find and Replace can work great, but not necessarily for text within text boxes. This tip discusses all the ins and outs of working with text boxes when it comes to finding text within them.

Finding an Unknown Character
Most of the text in a Word document is readily identifiable because you create it using well-known keystrokes: A, B, C, etc. Some characters are much harder to figure out, however, as they have no keyboard equivalent. If you need to search for or replace these characters, your first task is to figure out what they are. This tip provides an easy way to make that determination so that you can do the desired search or replace operation.

Finding and Deleting Rows
Got a table that contains rows you want to delete? Deleting one or two rows in a table is easy; deleting a bunch of rows that meet certain criteria can be more difficult. Here's a way you can make the deletions.

Finding the Previous Occurrence
Using Word's Object Browser, it is very easy to move among different instances of what you want to search in your document. This tip explains how this tool can be used effectively to enhance your searching efforts.

Ignoring Accented Characters in Searches
When writing in non-English languages, there can be many variations of accented characters that are used in a word. You might want to search for the word in a way that the accented character is ignored. Word sort of allows you to do this, if you just modify how you do the search.

Keyboard Control of the Find and Replace Dialog Box
Hate to take your hands off the keyboard? This tip explains how you can use the keyboard to work with the Find and Replace dialog box, without the need to use the mouse at all.

Mass Search and Replace
Word does not provide a way to do a find and replace through a group of documents. The macro and third-party solutions presented in this tip will help you find a way to find and replace exactly what you need.

Matching At the Beginning or End of a Word
The pattern matching capabilities of Word's search engine are quite powerful. You can tailor your search pattern so that whatever you specify must occur at the beginning or end of a word.

Ordering Search and Replace
Using the wildcard capabilities of Word's Find and Replace feature, you can do some fairly complex operations. This tip describes how you can use parentheses in what you are search for in order to affect what it is replaced with.

Preserving Bookmarks During Replace Operations
When you do a search and replace operation in Word, it is possible that you could inadvertently wipe out a bookmark or two. To avoid this potential problem, apply the concepts in this tip.

Removing All Comments
Need to get rid of all the comments in your document? You can do so by using the regular Find and Replace feature of Word.

Removing HTTP from URLs
Having problems when it comes to replacing information in URLs? You're not the only one; it can be confusing making mass changes to active hyperlinks. Here's the lowdown on how to make the changes you need to see.

Removing Specific Fields
Word allows you to place all sorts of fields in your documents. If you want to search for only specific types of fields, then you'll love the techniques presented in this tip.

Replacing Text with a Graphic
The Find and Replace feature in Word provides you with some powerful tools you can use to process a document. One such tool is the ability to replace text with graphics. This tip demonstrates how easy this type of editing is.

Replacing with a Subscript
The Find and Replace capabilities of Word are quite powerful. One type of replacing may not seem possible at first—replacing text with other text having formatting such as superscripts or subscripts. This type of editing is possible, however, by following the techniques presented in this tip.

Searching for a Specific Field
Fields can be a great boon to document development, as they allow you to insert different types of dynamic information in the body of the document. If you want to search for a specific type of field, you can do so using the techniques presented here.

Searching for Borders
The Find and Replace feature in Word allows you to easily search for lots of different items or characteristics in your document. One of the things you cannot natively do, however, is to search for borders on paragraphs. This tip introduces two macros that make short work of finding any bordered paragraphs in your documents.

Searching for Text that Does Not Have a Certain Format
You can easily use Find and Replace to find text that has a particular format to it. Most people don't know you can use the same tool to find text that does not have a particular format. Here's how to do this type of search.

Selective Formatting in Replacements
Do you need to replace text with a term or phrase that uses multiple formats? You can perform this seemingly complex task using the powerful find and replace tools in Word, or you can create a macro that will do the trick for you.

Selective Formatting in Searches
Need to search for text that has different formatting within the search term? Word can't handle something this complex, but you can create a macro to do the searching for you.

Special Characters in Pattern Matching
The most powerful search engine in Word use pattern matching, but the way you specify special characters in a pattern-matching search is different than in a regular search. This tip examines some of the differences that can affect how you do your searching.

 

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