How to Find and Replace in Word? 7 Simple Methods
(Note: This guide on how to find and replace in Word is suitable for all MS Word versions including Office 365)
Microsoft has a variety of features to help users troubleshoot any last-minute mishaps or perform any intricate functions with ease.
Usually, in Microsoft Word, we predominantly deal with documents of varying lengths and content ranging from a single paragraph to multiple pages.
Let us say there is a misspelled word and you need to find and change a particular text. So, how will you fix this?
To quickly fix typos, you can use the Find and Replace option in Word.
In this article, I will tell you how to Find and Replace in Word using 4 easy steps.
You’ll Learn
Watch this short video to learn how to Find and Replace in Word
What Is the Find and Replace Option in Word?
In a Microsoft Word document consisting of multiple pages, searching for a particular word manually can be an arduous process. And, having to change or replace all the particular words is even more difficult.
Here is where the Find and Replace in Word comes to save your time and effort. Using this option, you can just scroll through the entire document, find the particular word/words and replace it with the desired word easily.
I will tell you how to use Find and Replace in Word using an example. Consider you have an article of approximately 2000 words. It seems that the word “document” is to be replaced with the word “file” throughout the whole document.
You can use find and replace in Word in 2 ways.
- First, navigate to Home. Under Editing, select the Replace option.
The Find and Replace dialog box opens.
Note: You can use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+H to open the Find and Replace dialog box easily.
As you can see, there are two text boxes in the Find and Replace dialog box.
- In the Find what: text box, enter the text you want to find. In this case, we need to find the occurrence of the word “document” on all the pages. Enter the word “document” in the Find what: text box.
- In the Replace with: dialog box, enter the text you want to replace the previous text with. In this case, we want to replace the word “document” with the word “file”. So, enter the word “file” in the Replace with: text box.
Note: Once you have entered what to find and what to replace in both the text boxes, you can just use the Find Next button to find the particular word throughout the document without replacing them.
- Once you have entered the word to find and replace in both the text boxes, click on Replace.
When you first click the Replace button, Microsoft Word searches the document and highlights the first instance of the particular word.
Again when you click on Replace, the found word is replaced. The word “document” is replaced by the word “file” and Word highlights the next instance of the word “document”.
If you again click on Replace, the next instance of the word “document” is replaced with the word “file”.
Click on the Replace button again to replace the word, and the next instance of the word will be highlighted. This way you can replace all the words throughout the document.
In case you don’t want to replace a particular word, just click on the Find Next button. This will leave the particular word and highlight the next instance of the word to be replaced.
Clicking on the Replace button replaces words one by one. Once all the words are found and replaced, Microsoft Word throws a pop-up saying “We’re finished searching the document”.
Click on OK to remove the popup and go back to the Find and Replace dialog box.
Replace All
We wanted to change the word “document” to “file” throughout the document so we clicked on the Replace button again and again. The Replace All option is used to replace the particular text throughout the whole of the document.
To replace all the entries in the document with the required word, repeat steps 2 and 3 from the steps mentioned above. Enter the necessary text in both the Find what: and Replace with: text boxes. Click Replace All.
This replaces the text throughout the document and Microsoft Word throws a pop-up saying “All done”, along with the number of replacements made.
Note: Be wary while using the Replace All button as it changes all the entries in the document. If you ever feel like there might be some instance that need not be replaced, you can just use the normal Replace button to check and replace the words.
Related Reads:
How to Track Changes in Word? A Step-by-Step Guide
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More Options
Generally, while using the Find and Replace option, you just have to find the specific word and replace it with a word of your choice. But in some cases, Microsoft Word might not be able to detect and replace the particular word because of discrepancies in capitalization, punctuation, or if the said word is a part of another word.
So in these cases, you can use the More option to use the additional features of the find and replace option.
Clicking on the More>> button shows a variety of options with checkboxes. Let’s see about them.
Match case
Usually, Microsoft Word replaces the particular word irrespective of the case. If you only want to replace the word “document” with the word “file” and not the word “Document”, you can use the Match case option. This means that the word will be replaced only if the found word matches the case of the word you want to replace with.
Find whole words only
Find and Replace option replaces any word that matches with the word entered in the Find what: text box. Sometimes, Word just replaces the text even if it is part of another word. To avoid this, check the Find whole words only option. Microsoft Word only searches and replaces the text from Replace what: text box if and only if the found word is a whole word and not a part of another word.
For example, the word “line” will be replaced with “track” if and only if the found word is a complete word. The word “online” will not be replaced with “ontrack”, which changes the meaning of the sentence completely.
Use wildcards
Wildcards are symbols in Microsoft Word which help replace a character or a group of characters leaving the others intact. The commonly used wildcards are (*) and (?). Using a (*) replaces any character between the first and last elements whereas using (?) replaces only one element.
This can be a little tricky concept to understand. I’ll show you an example. If you want to replace any text between two letters t and e, you can use wildcards. Enter the wildcard element in the Find what: text box and the replacement in the Replace with: text box.
In this example, the words beginning with t and ending with e are replaced with the word “tie” as a result of using the (?) wildcard.
Sounds like (English)
This option is used to find and replace any words that might be phonetically similar. For example, consider the words color and colour, center and centre, etc. Though the pronunciation is the same, the spelling differs. With the Sounds like option checked, either of the instances will get replaced with the word you enter in the replace text box.
Find all word forms
By using the Find all word forms option, Microsoft enables you to find and replace the words which maybe be a form of another word.
For example, in the English language, auxiliary verbs contain multiple forms which change with the content. Be form words are: am, is, are, was, were, wheres have form verbs are: have, had, and has. Using the Find all word forms option, the words which may exist in other forms may also be found and replaced.
Using this option you can find and replace any similar word forms. For example, the “have” form of the verb contains have, has, and had. Likewise, ‘be’ form of words includes – is, was, were, etc. using this, the word forms can also be replaced.
Match prefix and Match suffix
This option helps you to find and replace in Word, the ones with the same beginning or ending. Consider you want to replace a part of the word “prove” and change it to “dive”. In such a case, you can toggle the checkbox and enter pro in Find what: text box and di in the Replace with: text box. When you click on Replace, Word replaces all the words that begin with pro and change them to “dive”. This is the same case as with the match suffix option.
Ignore Punctuation and White Spaces
This option acts as a filter to ignore any punctuation marks or white spaces that occur between texts.
Consider you want to replace the word “long-term”. This word is split by a hyphen, so entering “longterm” in the Find what: dialog box might not find and replace the particular word. Now, enabling the Ignore punctuation characters option leaves out the hyphen and is searched and replaced. This is the same case as with the white spaces.
Suggested Reads:
How to Make a Checklist in Word? 3 Simple Steps
How to Double Space in Word? 4 Easy Ways
How to Superscript in Word? 4 Easy Methods
Closing Thoughts
In this article, we saw how to Find and Replace in Word using 4 easy steps. We also saw how to use Replace All and More options for an even better search.
The Find and Replace option serves as a more efficient and elegant way to search for the particular text and replace them with your desired text. This particularly helps if there are any last-minute mishaps or more work has to be done in a lesser amount of time. Additionally, using the More option helps you customize the Find and Replace in Word to be more efficient.
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Simon Calder
Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!