Word makes it easy to search for information in a document with the Find and Replace feature. Search for information like text, character codes, and breaks quickly using the Find method. The following tips will have you searching like a pro in no time.

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

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

   A Fast Find-Next
Want a quick, easy way to "search again" for the next occurrence of what you need? Use the technique in this tip and you'll be finding what you need faster than ever.

   Counting Values in Table Cells
In Excel it is easy to count how many times a certain character occurs in a column of cells. In Word, it is a bit trickier. It could be done with a macro, but there is an even easier way, as described in this tip.

   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.

   Initiating a New Search
I do a lot of searching in my documents. Sometimes the searches may not go exactly as I expected. Here are some things I routinely check when starting a new search.

   Quicker Multiple Replace Operations
Need to replace a lot of the same characters very, very quickly? Here's a great way to do the replacement.

   Replacing with Plain Text
When using Find and Replace, how your replacements are formatted will depend on how the text being replaced is formatted. Here is why that happens and some ways that you can affect the formatting of the replacement text.

   Smart Quotes are Incorrectly Replaced
Not able to replace smart quotes as you want? Here are some ways that you can be sure that every smart quote is changed, exactly as you want.

   Specifying a Number of Matches
The wild card searching capabilities of Word are amazing. One thing you can do with wild cards is to specify not only a character (or character range) to match, but also how many times that character should be repeated in what is matched. Here's the low-down on how to add this power to your searching.

   Updating to Smart Quotes
As you type a document, Word automatically converts your quote marks and apostrophes to "curly" versions that look more professional. When working with a document from a different source that doesn't include these smart quotes, you may want to convert them all so they look the same. This is easy to do simply by using Word's Find and Replace function. This tip explains how.

   Using Search Text in the Replacement
When you use the Find and Replace tool in Word, you may want to include what you searched for in the replacement text. That's easy to do; just apply the technique described in this tip.

   When Replace Doesn't Work
Find and Replace is a great tool, but what are you to do if your find or replace doesn't work as you expect? This tip provides a few pointers that will help you track down the cause of whatever problems you are facing.