Find and replace italics in word

Use Find and Replace to Change Formatting in Microsoft Word Documents

by Avantix Learning Team | Updated May 13, 2022

Applies to: Microsoft^® Word^® 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021 or 365 (Windows)

You can find and replace formatting in Word by searching for specific formatting, such as bold or italic, and changing it to other formats. You or even search for text with specific formatting and change the text and the formats. With Find and Replace, you can search for and change both character and paragraph formatting.

You may want to use Find and Replace in the following scenarios:

• You want to remove character formatting throughout your document such as every instance of bold. Character formatting includes any formatting in the Font group on the Home tab in the Ribbon or in the Font dialog box.
• You want to change every instance of one font and change it to another font.
• You want to find every instance of blue and change it to green.
• You want to format specific text with consistent formatting. For example, you want to format every instance of your company name in bold and blue.
• You want to find and change paragraph formatting. For example, for every paragraph that is aligned to the right with single line spacing, you’d like to align to the left and change the line spacing.

Note: The better way to handle global formatting changes is to use styles but if you haven’t used styles, Find and Replace provides a fast way to make changes throughout your document. You can even use Find and Replace to change styles.

Recommended article: How to Find and Replace in Word (and Use Wildcards)

Do you want to learn more about Microsoft Word? Check out our virtual classroom or in-person Word courses >

Note: Screenshots in this article are from Word 365 but are similar in previous versions of Word.

The Replace command appears on the Home tab in the Ribbon in the Editing group:

If you want to perform advanced Find and Replace tasks, you will need to display the expanded Find and Replace dialog box by clicking More:

When you run through a Find and Replace task, if you’re not satisfied with the results after you close the dialog box, press Ctrl + Z to undo and try it again.

Find and Replace character formatting

If you want to search for character formatting only, such as bold or italic, you can use Find and Replace.

If you want to find and replace specific character formatting (such as replacing italic with bold), you may have to run through the find and replace process more than once.

To find and replace character formatting in a Word document:

1. Position the cursor at the beginning of the document.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. In the Editing group, click Replace to display the Replace dialog box. Alternatively, press Ctrl + H to display the Replace dialog box.
4. Click More if necessary to display the expanded Find and Replace options.
5. Click in the Find what box.
6. Click Format at the bottom of the dialog box. A drop-down menu appears.
7. Select Font. A dialog box appears.
8. Select the format(s) you want to find (such as Italic in the Font Style area).
9. Click OK.
10. Click in the Replace with box.
11. Click Format and then select Font.
12. Select the format you want to use as a replacement (such as Bold in the Font Style area).
13. Click OK.
14. Click Find Next and then click Replace for each occurrence or click Replace All. If you are trying to replace italic with bold, this would add bold and keep the italic.
15. If you now want to remove the italic, ensure Italic appears below Find What.
16. Click in the Replace with box.
17. Click the arrow beside Format and then select Font.
18. In the Font Style area, click No Italic.
19. Click OK.
20. Click Find Next and then click Replace for each occurrence or click Replace All.
21. Click Close.

In the following example, the Find and Replace dialog box is used to find text in bold and would add italic:

If you want to find and replace a font, that should require only one find and replace task. If you want to find and remove a font color, you can find a font color (such as blue) and replace it with a font color of Automatic.

Remove character formatting using Find and Replace

To remove character formatting using Find and Replace in a Word document:

Position the cursor at the beginning of the document.

1. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
2. In the Editing group, click Replace to display the Replace dialog box. Alternatively, press Ctrl + H to display the Replace dialog box.
3. Click More if necessary to display the expanded Find and Replace options.
4. Click in the Find what box.
5. Click Format at the bottom of the dialog box. A drop-down menu appears.
6. Select Font. A dialog box appears.
7. Select the format(s) you want to find.
8. Click OK.
9. Click in the Replace with box.
10. Click Format and select Font.
11. Select Regular in the Font Style area and turn off any other formatting.
12. Click OK.
13. Click Find Next and then click Replace for each occurrence or click Replace All.
14. Click Close.

In the following example, Find and Replace is used to find text formatted in italic and remove it:

The Replace Font dialog box includes options like Not Bold, Not Italic and Regular to remove formatting (the filled check boxes that appear are left as is):

Clear Find and Replace formatting from previous searches

If you have performed a previous find and replace with formatting, you’ll want to remove those options if you want to perform another search.

To remove previous formatting in the Find and Replace dialog box:

1. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
2. In the Editing group, click Replace to display the Replace dialog box. Alternatively, press Ctrl + H to display the Replace dialog box.
3. Click More if necessary to display the expanded Find and Replace options.
4. Click in the Find What box.
5. Click No Formatting at the bottom of dialog box.
6. Click in the Replace With box.
7. Click No Formatting at the bottom of dialog box.
8. Continue with your next Find and Replace task.

Find and Replace paragraph formatting

You can also use Find and Replace to change paragraph formatting. For example, you may want to find every instance of a paragraph with a space before of 9 pt and a space after of 7 pt and change it to a space before of 8 pt and a space after of 6 pt. As mentioned above, this type of formatting can be included in styles.

To change paragraph formatting using Find and Replace in a Word document:

1. Position the cursor at the beginning of the document.
2. Click the Home tab in the Ribbon.
3. In the Editing group, click Replace to display the Replace dialog box. Alternatively, press Ctrl + H to display the Replace dialog box.
4. Click More if necessary to display the expanded Find and Replace options.
5. Click in the Find what box.
6. Click Format at the bottom of the dialog box. A drop-down menu appears.
7. Select Paragraph. A dialog box appears.
8. Select the format(s) you want to find. You can also enter specific amounts in this dialog box (such as 9 pt before). Paragraph formatting includes alignment, indents, line spacing and space before and after.
9. Click OK.
10. Click in the Replace with box.
11. Click Format and then select Paragraph.
12. Select the format(s) you want to use as replacements. You can also enter specific amounts in this dialog box (such as 8 pt before).
13. Click OK.
14. Click Find Next and then click Replace for each occurrence or click Replace All.
15. Click Close.

In the example below, Find and Replace will search for any paragraphs with a space before of 9 and a space after of 7 and then replace it with a space before of 8 and space after of 6.

Find and Replace Text with Formatting

You can also enter text in the Find what and Replace with boxes if you want to find text with specific formatting and replace it.

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Using the Find and Replace tool in Microsoft work is easy, when you are just replacing one word with another (post on how to do so here).

Replacing formatting in Word is one of the trickiest things you’ll come across. You may have been asked to change all of the underlined words to italics, or remove all strikethroughs, by doing so you risk scrambling all of your documents formatting at once.

Before you start scrolling through your Word Document and manually updating the formatting, the Find and Replace tool is there to make this easier, and it does. You just need to follow the right steps and be clear on exactly what you are wanting to change.

In this post, we will show you how to use the Find and Replace tool to update fonts, for example from italic to underlined and how to update paragraphs, for example from indented paragraphs to aligned left.

Using Find and Replace to update Character formatting

1. Open Word
2. Click Edit
3. Press Find in the drop-down

1. Click Replace…

1. Type the word (without formatting) in the Find Box.
   1. We are using the word Missing in Bold as our example here

1. Click the Advanced Options dropdown
2. Press Advanced Find & Replace

1. Under the Advanced Options find and click Font, to search for a word in a specific font. E.g Bold, Italic, Strikethrough

1. Within the Font pop-up box, select the font of the words you want to replace. Our example here is Bold.

1. Press OK
2. The Advanced Options pop up box will now re-appear with Bold font selected. Type the replacement word in the Replace with Box

1. Press Replace All

You have now successfully replaced your word, in the desired format only with another word, or an alternative format.

Using Find and Replace to update Paragraphs and Alignment

1. Open Word
2. Click Edit
3. Press Find in the drop-down

1. Click Replace…

1. Click the Advanced Options dropdown
2. Press Advanced Find & Replace

1. Under the Advanced Options find and click the Format tab. In this example, we are updating the paragraphing in our document

1. The Find Paragraph pop up window will open. In this window, select the paragraphing or spacing you wish to find.
   1. In this example, we are looking to find all 5.67ch inside and outside indentation.

1. Press OK
2. Press Replace
3. Select the paragraph or spacing you wish to replace the selected paragraphing with.
   1. In this example, we are wanting to take the indentation back to 0 inside and 0 outside.

1. Press OK

1. Press Replace All

You have now successfully updated the paragraphing, alignment or indentation throughout your Microsoft Word Document.

Searching for a better way to work together in Microsoft Word Documents?

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All special terms in a Word document I worked on were surrounded by straight double quote marks. I wanted to remove the quote marks and italicise the term. For example, I wanted “term” to become term.

This was a relatively easy task using wildcards in Word’s find and replace, but there are a couple of ‘gotchas’—it won’t catch anything in curly (smart) quotes or inside single quote marks (straight or curly), or if there’s US-style punctuation (e.g. period, comma) at the end, such as “term.” I’ve added alternatives to deal with these situations. It also won’t catch more than one word inside the quote marks, and I don’t have an easy solution for that.

In ALL cases below:

• you must have Use wildcards checked in the advanced Find and Replace dialog box
• for the italics, when you’re in the Replace field, select Format > Font> and choose Italic
• all the double and single straight quotes here DO NOT display correctly, so DO NOT copy/paste from here—instead, type the quote marks in directly from your keyboard

Case 1: Double straight quotes

• Find: (“)(<*>)(“)
• Replace: 2

For those preferring to use ACSII codes, a double straight quote mark is ^034.

Case 2: Single straight quotes

• Find: (‘)(<*>)(‘)
• Replace: 2

For those preferring to use ACSII codes, a single straight quote mark is ^039.

Note: This may not work—if it doesn’t, try (‘)(*)(‘) as the Find, but be careful when replacing as a single quote mark is also used as an apostrophe. DO NOT do Replace All.

Case 3: Double curly quotes

• Find: (“)(<*>)(”)
• Replace: 2

For those preferring to use ACSII codes, an opening double curly quote mark is ^0147 and a closing one is ^0148.

NOTE: It’s easier to copy a curly quote from the main Word document and paste it into the Find. Don’t forget to copy an opening one for the left part of the Find string, and a closing quote for the right part.

Case 4: Single curly quotes

• Find: (‘)(<*>)(’)
• Replace: 2

For those preferring to use ACSII codes, an opening single straight quote mark is ^0145, and a closing single straight quote mark is ^0146.

Note: This may not work—if it doesn’t, try (‘)(*)(‘) as the Find, but be careful when replacing as a single quote mark is also used as an apostrophe. DO NOT do Replace All.

NOTE: It’s easier to copy a curly quote from the main Word document and paste it into the Find. Don’t forget to copy an opening one for the left part of the Find string, and a closing quote for the right part.

Case 5: Period or comma inside the closing quote mark

Use the relevant Find from any of the above, depending on the style of quote marks you’re looking for, and add an extra command ([,.]) to find the comma or period too. For straight double quotes, you’d change it to:

• Find: (“)(<*>)([,.])(“)
• Replace: 23

If you want to keep the punctuation, then you need to add 3 to the Replace. If you don’t want to keep the punctuation, then just leave it as 2. Again, don’t forget to set the Replace to italic font. The end result will be an italicised word with its trailling punctuation also in italics.

If don’t want the punctuation in italics, then you’ll need to run another find/replace using wildcards to change the punctuation back to normal text:

• Find: ([,.]) (this time, set the Find to italics using Format > Font > Italic)
• Replace: 1 (for this one, set the Replace to NOT use italics using Format > Font > Regular)