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: Using Find and Replace to Change Text Case.
David wanted to find words with an initial capital letter and change the initial capital letter to lowercase. Using wildcards, he wrote a Find string that correctly found capitalized words. However, David was unable to figure out how to change the initial capital to lowercase. He thought of using a Replace string, but didn't know how to create one that would do that.
There is no way to do this in Word, at least not using Find and Replace by itself. The closest you can achieve is to create a macro that will use Find and Replace to step through all instances of your capitalized words and individually change the case of them.
You can, however, easily change the case of those letters by following these general steps:
Figure 1. The Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (7535) 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: Using Find and Replace to Change Text Case.
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2020-08-25 15:40:57
Steven
Note that this page is for Microsoft Word versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. For later versions, which is probably everyone commenting on this page since 2016, check the link to the appropriate page at the top of this page.
If followed, the instructions above and on the page for later versions of Word do exactly what Mr. Wyatt says. Once all items are selected/highlighted, pressing Shift + F3 will change the case of each letter selected between lower and upper case. If words are selected, it will change the case from all caps, to all miniscule, to initial cap, in succession. I might add, that I have tried quite a few of Mr. Wyatt's suggestions and the only time any failed to work as stated was when I failed to follow each step in the process correctly.
2020-08-03 17:55:56
Joe
Doesn't work. Different version or for whatever the reason, almost every time I try one of Allen Wyatt's instructions, they simply don't work. I have been avoiding his instruction due to that but I tried this one just to see if he has upped his game. Nope.
I did read the comments and I see that bigbucky has the actual solution.
2020-07-21 21:37:26
Clifton
Could you share with us David's wildcard search string? This would be very helpful.
Also if you would demonstrate the wildcard search for paragraphs that begin with words with initial lowercase letters.
2020-02-20 09:19:20
MPerez
Always giving wonderful tips, many thanks!
2019-11-14 10:48:33
Wirkwajie Eugine Wirba
Thanks so much it really helped me to replaced about 212 entries in a document and change to lower case s
2019-08-21 13:53:48
Bob A
Not exactly what I want. I'd like to find and replace all examples of a capital letter followed by a period to the same capital letter without the succeeding period. How can I do that?
2018-11-25 14:27:07
bigbucky
When you click on More there is a Match case checkbox. Check it and then put the capitalized word in the find and the lowercase in replace. it will replace them all in one go.
2018-05-09 03:05:20
Julie
You're great! Thank you! Every time I use it it works perfectly!
2017-03-30 13:15:38
Jacob
Doesn't work. highlights bolded terms, Shift F3 does not change all, only the first term.
2016-08-30 23:13:50
ramon
can you be more specific about it
2015-05-06 10:35:45
VENKATA BHARGAVA RAM
Hi,
Can i get automatically delete repeated word VBA Query? (without adding words to dictionary)
Example:
sales sales
and and
After query:
sales
and
thank you.
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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: 
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