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: Find and Replace in a Column or Row.

Find and Replace in a Column or Row

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated May 25, 2024)

If you do a lot of work with tables, you may need to find and replace information in a column or row of a table without affecting anything else in the table. You can do this by remembering that Word allows you to limit a search to text you select, so simply select the column or row you want to search before you instigate the search. In other words, these are the steps:

Select the table column or row in which you want to search.
Press Ctrl+H or choose Replace from the Edit menu. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. The Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

Enter what you want to search for and what you want to replace it with, using the controls in the dialog box to modify the search and replace just the way you want.
Make sure the Search drop-down list is set to Down or Up, according to your needs. You may need to click on More to see the Search drop-down list. (If you have Search set to All, then Word may think you want to search outside the bounds you defined by selecting a row or column in step 1.)
Click on Find Next or Replace All, as desired.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1610) 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: Find and Replace in a Column or Row.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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