How to Use Find and Replace in Microsoft Word

Sometimes you finish writing a report, presentation, or letter and discover that you have some consistent typos in the Word document. If the document is short, it won’t take much to change a few. However, you can do this quickly using the Find and Replace option in Word.

The Find feature lets you identify all occurrences of a given word, while the Replace feature lets you replace words. Here’s how you can use both features.

Find text

You can access the Find feature in Microsoft Word’s Navigation panel using a simple shortcut on your keyboard. Here’s how it works:

Stage 1: Start the Microsoft Word document.

Step 2: Press the CTRL + F keys simultaneously to launch the navigation pane.

Stage 3: Enter the text you want to find in the text box labeled Search documents.

Step 4: Press Enter on your keyboard to continue your search and you will see the corresponding matches in the Navigation pane. The tool highlights every matching word in the text, including those that match partially.

Step 5: Move from one result to the next using the arrows next to the text box. You can also click on any of the results to edit them directly.

Step 6: If your document has headings, you can search the Document from the Headings tab. Go to the navigation pane and select any title to browse your document using titles.

Step 7: Click the Pages tab at the bottom of the Navigation page to search by Pages. When you do this, you will see thumbnails of each page in the document. Click on the desired page and find the text there.

You can close the Navigation Pane after editing the document; all highlights will disappear. If you want to use the find feature to search for special characters in a Word document, you can try the next method.

Find Custom-Qualified Text (Advanced Find)

The Advanced Find feature is useful when you need to search for more specific phrases or words. Examples include special characters, whole words only, or a special style or font. Advanced Find helps you track down those phrases or words with ease. Check out the steps below to find out how:

Stage 1: Start the Microsoft Word document.

Step 2: On the ribbon, click the drop-down list under Editing.

Stage 3: Click the drop-down arrow next to Find and click Advanced Find to launch the Find and Replace dialog box.

Note: You can simultaneously press the CTRL + H keys on your keyboard to launch the Find and Replace dialog box.

Step 4: If you want to customize your search, click More. Doing this will give you access to more options for your advanced search. You can choose any of the following options:

• match case
• Use wildcards
• Find only whole words
• sounds like
• match prefix
• Match suffix
• Find all word forms
• Ignore whitespace characters
• Ignore punctuation characters

Replace Text

One way to replace a particular phrase or word is to use the Replace Text feature. We will show you how to do this in the following steps:

Stage 1: Start the Microsoft Word document.

Step 2: On the ribbon, click the drop-down list under Editing.

Stage 3: Click the drop-down arrow next to Find and click Replace to launch the Find and Replace dialog box.

Step 4: You should see two fields in the Find and Replace window. Add the word or phrase you want to replace in the Find what box and the new phrase or word in the Replace box.

Step 5: If you want to replace a specific search result, select Replace. However, if you want to replace all search results, select Replace All.

Replace Text with Custom Attributes

This feature is very similar to the Advanced Find option above. It allows you to find text and replace them with characters, phrases or words in a particular style or font, capitalization or punctuation. The following steps will guide you how to use this option:

Stage 1: Start the Microsoft Word document.

Step 2: On the ribbon, click the drop-down list under Editing.

Stage 3: Click the drop-down arrow next to Find and click Replace to launch the Find and Replace dialog box.

Step 4: You should see two fields in the Find and Replace window. Add the special word or phrase you want to replace in the Find what box and the new phrase or phrase in the Replace box.

Step 5: If you want to go further in customizing your search, click More and check the relevant boxes for your Replace feature.

Change Words Easily

That’s it for how to use Find and Replace in Microsoft Word. If you want to keep track of all updates with Find and Replace, make sure you have track changes enabled in Microsoft Word.