Replace with function in word

You’ve just finished typing a presentation that’s due in about 15 minutes. But before you can celebrate your moment of victory, you realize that you’ve spelled your client‘s name wrong and have missed the double Rs in their company name multiple times throughout your document.

Cue: An aggravated scream.

The good news is that changing these small errors is an easy fix on Office 365. You can replace as many words as you want within seconds on Microsoft Word using its super helpful Find and Replace functionality.

This article will guide you through the necessary steps to help you find and replace text in MS Word.

Ready? Let’s begin.

How to Use Microsoft Word’s Find and Replace Feature

Microsoft is one of the leading companies in the world. It’s because it prioritizes its customers and comes up with innovations that can make their lives easier and more convenient.

The Find and Replace feature on MS Word is a shining example of this effort.

You can use this feature to find specific words in your file and then replace them in case there are some last-minute changes. This can even be useful when you make mistakes in the doc while typing or want to accommodate those last-minute client changes.

We’ll show you how to replace text in Microsoft Word, depending on the computer device you use.

How to Change and Replace Text in MS Word on Windows

It’s no wonder that all Windows devices have built-in Microsoft programs considering it’s a product developed by the Microsoft company themselves. If you find yourself using the word processor often for making notes or presentations, you’ll be especially thankful for the Find and Replace functionality.

Here’s a short step-by-step guide to using the feature in MS Word on Windows devices:

Step #1 Open Microsoft Word on your Windows device.

Step #2 Click on the Home tab on your top menu bar. A secondary menu will appear on your screen.

Step #3 Select the Replace option located on the top-right-hand side of your screen. Alternatively, you can also press Ctrl + H. The Find and Replace pop-up box will appear immediately.

Step #4 Type in the phrase or word you want to locate in your Word doc in the Find what field under the Find tab.

Step #5 Click on the Replace tab on the top menu bar. Type in the word you want to update in the Replace with field.

On clicking on the Replace button, the changes you want will be made one by one in the Word doc. However, if you want to update all fitting instances at once, you can click on Replace All instead.

Microsoft Word will give you a confirmation of the replacements made in your Word doc. It’ll look something like this:

How to Change and Replace Text in MS Word on Mac

Now that we’ve covered Windows, let’s see how you can use the Find and Replace feature on a MacBook. Here’s how to proceed in MS Word when you’re using an iOS device:

Step #1 Open the Microsoft Word document on your Mac.

Step #2 Take your cursor towards the top of your screen until you see your Mac’s top toolbar. Click on the Edit tab. A dropdown menu will appear.

Step #3 Click on Find from the displayed menu options. You’ll typically see a Replace… option on your screen.

But if you don’t, simply press Shift + Command + H on your keyboard. A side navigation bar will appear on the left-hand side of your computer screen.

Step #4 Enter the word or phrase you want to replace in the doc in the Search for… field.

Once you’ve finished typing the incorrect word or phrase, type in the right word or phrase that you want to replace the incorrect one with in the Replace with… field.

Step #5 Click on the Find tab to locate the matches. Once you’re sure the match is right and highlighting the words you want to change, select Replace. This will replace every individual match one by one.

Again, if you click on the Replace All button, all the matching words and phrases will be changed at once.

After the changes are made, you’ll see an “All Done” message just below the Replace and Replace All buttons that indicate the replacement of the intended word or phrase.

Advanced Find and Replace Features: Everything You Need to Know

You can take this whole shebang of replacing words and phrases to the next level thanks to Microsoft Word’s Advanced Find and Replace option. In other words, you can use the Advanced settings to simplify the process further and make the results even more accurate.

Follow the previously stated steps to open the Find and Replace pop-up box. On it appears on your screen, click on More.

You’ll immediately see a slew of additional options like Match case, Use wildcards, Match prefix, Match suffix, and so on. Here’s how the Advanced Find and Replace settings look like:

Each one of these has its own unique functions. Let’s discuss them in more detail below:

Find whole words only

If you check on the Find whole words only box, MS Word will treat your search term as an entire word and won’t look for your search term within other words.

Example: If you’re searching for the word “stand,“ the search feature won’t show you the word “standard.”

Use wildcards

Use wildcards is one of the more advanced search options that allows you to use question marks, brackets, asterisks, and other similar symbols to modify your search.

You see, a wildcat is a short string of characters – or a character – that represents multiple characters in a search.

Example: <(int)*(net)>

Sounds like (English)

As the name suggests, the Sounds like option finds similar-sounding words to your search term. This is best for finding homonyms and words that have varying spellings.

Example: This is common for words that have both UK and US variants. For instance, you can have both “colours” and “colors” on a document.

Find all word forms (English)

This option allows you to look for the word you searched for, along with other instances that are either plural or in a different tense.

Example: If you search for the word “be” after enabling the Find all word forms option, you’ll also find the words “are“ and “is“ highlighted as they are the different tense forms of “be.”

Match prefix and Match suffix

Checking off the Match prefix or Match suffix fields will limit your search to words that have the same beginning or the same ending, respectively.

Example: Suppose you enable Match prefix. When you search for the word “love,” Microsoft Word will find the words “love“ and “lovely.“ However, you won’t find the word “beloved“ highlighted in the search results as it’s a suffix of love.

Ignore punctuation characters and Ignore white-space characters

Again, this search option is self-explanatory. It tells Microsoft Word not to take up spaces, periods, hyphens, and similar attitudes into consideration.

Example: After clicking on the search options, when you type in “color block”, you’ll also see “color-block.”

When to Use the Find and Replace Feature of Microsoft Word

The whole point of the Find and Replace function in Microsoft Word is to allow MS Word users to search for target text – whether it’s a specific word, a type of formatting, or a string of wildcard characters – and replace them with whatever you want.

Typically, here’s why you should use this feature:

• When you want to maintain absolute consistency in your document
• When you want to speed up typing and formatting tasks
• When you realize last-minute mistakes and want to find and then replace your errors
• When you’re writing a document that includes words with varying spellings. For instance, if you typically follow US English, and are typing a doc according to the rules of UK English, the Find and Replace feature would be super helpful to identify and change spelling errors.
• Adding special characters to words
• editing partial words and phrases
• Correcting words that you may have misspelled in a hurry. For instance, if you type “h?t” instead of “hat” and enable Use wildcards, you’ll find it highlighted in your search.
• Eliminating extra spaces
• Changing the separator character in numerals
• Reversing currency symbols

Concluding Thoughts

As you may have realized, the Find and Replace feature of Microsoft is a lifesaver, to say the least.

It can help you save tons of time, which would otherwise have been wasted in looking for errors and then replacing them. Whether you are a student, an intern, or the CEO of a company, this is a functionality that we all can be very thankful for.

The Microsoft Word Find and Replace feature is very powerful and a great time saver for the more skilled user. You can use Find and Replace to locate exact words, phrases and even patterns matching various scenarios.

Let us start with exploring how to do a regular Find and Replace in Word.

Click the Find or Replace buttons in the Home ribbon Editing section

If you want to Find a word or sentence in your Word file go to the Home ribbon tab and go to the Editing section.

• If you want to Find click Find
• If you want to Find and Replace click Replace

This will open the Find and Replace window.

You can also use the CTRL+F keyboard shortcut to Find and the CTRL+H keyboard shortcut to do a Find and Replace.

If you click More > > you will see the full set of options below:

The following options are available:

• Match case – will only find words/sentences that match the letter case (e.g. A vs a)
• Find whole words only – will only find whole words (if looking for “ate” will only match ” ate “ and not “late”)
• Use wildcards – allows you to use wildcards (click the Special button for list of wildcard special characters that can be used
• Sounds like – matches expressions that sound like provided text
• Find all word forms – matches all words/sentences that match a word form (e.g. “doyle” will also match “doyl” as it sounds similar)
• Match prefix – match text matching a prefix of a word
• Match suffix – match text matching a suffixof a word
• Ignore punctuation characters – will ignore punctionation
• Ignore white-space characters – will ignore white-space (” “)

Provide a word, sentence and/or wildcard special characters

Provide a word/sentence you want to Find in the Find what text field and the word/sentence you want to replace it with in the Replace with text field.

Below and explanation of key buttons used to Find or Replace text:

Although Find and Replace is a basic and very easy to use function it is often underestimated. Especially that many users do not know that you can easily use wildcards to replace more complex text patterns.

Using Wilcards


You can also you wildcards to replace various complex patterns such as sequences of numbers or specific number of occurances, letter cases, characters use to replace any characters and much more. To use wilcards click More > > and select the Use wilcards checkbox.

On the right you should see all available wildcard characters.

For more information on Special Characters that can be used in Wildcard Find and Replace read this

Let us explore some example common scenarios below:

Match any word made of A-Z characters, any letter case

<[A-z]@>

This matches any single word that contains A-z letters.
The < character indicate the beginning, while > the end of a word. The [A-z] brackets indicate a series of characters, using the hyphen allows you specify the whole range of A-z letters. Lastly the @ character indicates that the previous expression may repeat 0 to any number of times.

Match an email from the .com domain

<[A-z,0-9]@@[A-z,0-9]@.com>

This matches only emails with A-z letters and 0-9 numbers in their login and domain name. Again the [A-z,0-9] bracket specifies we are listing several ranges of acceptable characters, following this with the @ characters tells that any number of these characters may appear. To use the @ character explicitly we need to escape it with a backslash . We use the similar patter for the domain name. Finally notice again I am using < and > to indicate the beginning or end of a word as emails are not separated by spaces.

Match a phone number split with hyphens

[0-9]@-[0-9]@-[0-9]@

The above matches any 3 series of digits separated by hyphens.

Using Wildcards to Capture and Replace text

In some cases you will want to not only capture a pattern but replace it with part of its content. For this you need to use Expressions (). Expressions let you mark a specific group in the “Find what” text field, that you want to reuse in your “Replace with” text field. Below a simple example:

Example: Switch places of 2 numbers

In this example we have a pattern of numbers separated by hyphens. Let us assume we want to switch places of these two 3-digit numbers.
Text:

Some text 123-456, some other text 789-012.
Something else 345-678

Find what:

([0-9]{3})-([0-9]{3})

Replace with:

-

The resulting Text:

Some text 456-123, some other text 012-789.
Something else 678-345

Example: Replace Email domain

Imagine you want to replace an email domain from yahoo to gmail on all emails in your Word document. If you didn’t know Expressions you would use wildcards to find a match an manually replace all such cases. However below an example that will replace this automatically:

All Expressions () are numbered by the sequence in which they are used. This allows us to reference the first part of the email by using the backslash and number 1.

VBA Find and Replace

You can also execute a Find and Replace sequence using a VBA Macro:

Find a single match

The below procedure will print out all occurances of “Find Me” phrases.

ActiveDocument.Content.Select
With Selection.Find
    .Text = "Find Me"
    .Forward = True
    .Execute
End With
 
If Selection.Find.Found Then
      Debug.Print "Found: " & Selection.Range 'Print the found match 
Else
      Debug.Print "Not Found"
End If

Find all matches

Below VBA macro will find all emails in a Word document with their mailto hyperlinks. This is a good example of fixing hyperlinks in Word documents.

ActiveDocument.Content.Select
Do
  With Selection.Find
      .Text = "<[A-z,0-9]@@[A-z,0-9]@.com>"
      .MatchWildcards = True
      .Forward = True
      .Execute
  End With
 
  If Selection.Find.Found Then
      ActiveDocument.Hyperlinks.Add Anchor:=Selection.Range, Address:="mailto:" & Selection.Range
  Else
      Exit Do 'If not found then end the loop
  End If
Loop

Conclusions

Here are my main takeaways from using Find and Replace in Microsoft Word

Details

Written by Tibor Környei

Probably few people are familiar with, and even fewer use, the advanced feature of Microsoft Word’s Find and Replace function. However, this feature may often prove to be extremely helpful in the translator’s work. It can be accessed from the Find and Replace dialog box and it is called, depending on the version of Word, Use pattern matching orUse wildcards. The advanced feature only works after you have checked this option. If it is not presented to you in the dialog box, click the More button.

«Much time can be saved in translating legal, financial, and technical texts by using properly written find-and-replace formulas.»

This feature allows you to set complex search conditions by using special character combinations. The symbols to be used are listed in detail under Word’s Help menu, so we shall not describe them here. The use of this feature will be shown below using a few examples. You may want to test these examples in Word using a test file. 

By highlighting portions of the text, the search can be limited to that portion of the document. Word will perform the search in this portion and then will ask you whether you wish to continue to search in the rest of the text. Click the No button. Replacement can also be performed in the interactive mode by first pressing the Find button and, upon reaching the desired string, deciding whether replacement is required. If so, you press the Replace button; if not, press Find Next.

Find what:	•{2,}
Replace with:	•

The • symbol here stands for a regular space. 

The {n,} notation indicates the occurrence of the character or string preceding it at least n times; in this case it indicates that we are looking for a string consisting of at least two spaces. The generic format of the expression is {n,m}, indicating the occurrence of the character preceding it between n and m times. In some non-English versions of the software, asemicolon is used instead of the comma. By clicking Special, you can check which separator character appears in the bracketed expression indicating the number of occurrences.

2. Changing the separator character in numerals 

Numbers written in English in the format 12,345,678.12 are written in some languages in the format 12 345 678,12 (the thousands separator here is not a simple space, but a non-breaking space typed with the key combination Ctrl+Shift+space). In a document with lots of numbers, replacing the separator character manually may be a time-consuming exercise. Use the following:

Find what:	([0-9]),([0-9])
Replace with:	1^s2

The expression in square brackets [0-9] stands for an arbitrary numerical character (digit). By placing an expression between parentheses, it can be referred to as a unit in theReplace with box. The units are numbered from left to right starting with 1. There are two such units in our example. 

The expression in the Find what box means: look for any string of characters where there is one comma between any two digits. 

The expression in the Replace with box means: retype the string found by inserting a non-breaking space between the digits while leaving the digits and their order unchanged. This is indicated by 1 and 2. The caret (^) with the letter s following it is the symbol of a non-breaking space. It can also be inserted by clicking Special and then Nonbreaking space. The same non-breaking space can also be inserted by typing a caret followed by the character’s ANSI code, in this case 0160. This method allows any character to be inserted as long as its ANSI code is known. In this case the replace expression would look as follows:

Find what:	([0-9]),([0-9])
Replace with:	1^01602

In the next step, we shall replace the decimal point with a decimal comma.

Find what:	([0-9]).([0-9])
Replace with:	1,2

The procedure is similar to the one described above; no explanation is needed. 

The reverse procedure when translating into English is somewhat different: 

First we change the decimal comma into a decimal point:

Find what:	([0-9]),([0-9])
Replace with:	1.2

Then we change the non-breaking space into a comma:

Find what:	([0-9])^s([0-9])
Replace with:	1,2

If we wish to process not only non-breaking spaces but also regular spaces functioning as thousands separators (after all, we cannot assume that the author of the original text follows proper word processing practices), we must use the [•^s] (open square bracket — space — caret — letter s — close square bracket) as follows:

Find what:	([0-9])[•^s]([0-9])
Replace with:	1,2

3. Reversing ordinal plus noun 

Hungarian expressions like «2. fejezet», «2. fejezetben» or «2. Fejezet» are all translated into English as «Chapter 2». The find-and-replace operation is the following:

Find what:	([0-9]{1,}).?([Ff]ejeze[a-z]{1,})
Replace with:	Chapter^s1

The first {1,} refers to any digit preceding it; the second one refers to an alpha character, indicating that we are looking for one or several such characters. In this way, we can search for numbers consisting of several digits and for flexed forms of words. (Leave out the last letter of the unflexed word stem.) The ? always stands for an arbitrary character; in this way it does not matter whether there is a regular space or a non-breaking space in a given position. Of course, the proper way of looking for both types of space is the use of the [•^s] expression (open square bracket — space — caret — letter s — close square bracket). 

The Find what box means: look for any string of characters where an Arabic number of any length is followed by a period and then, after an arbitrary character (which could also be a non-breaking space), and by a flexed or unflexed form of the word «fejezet» or «Fejezet». The method allows for searching for both upper-case and lower-case forms. 

In the Replace with expression, the number of the chapter will appear instead of 1. 

The method can also be used, with a slight modification, for chapters identified by Roman numerals. For example, «II. fejezet», is to be translated as «Chapter II». The solution:

Find what:	([A-Z]{1,}).?([Ff]ejeze[a-z]{1,})
Replace with:	Chapter^s1

All we had to do in order to search for Roman numerals is replace the expression ([0-9]{1,}) with ([A-Z]{1,}). 

In legal texts, an expression of the type «45. §» must often be replaced by an expression of the type «Section 45». This can be easily accomplished on the basis of the above explanations:

Find what:	([0-9]{1,}).[•^s]§
Replace with:	Section^s1

The expression [•^s] provides for the possibility of two types of space. The § character could also be written using its ANSI code:

Find what:	([0-9]{1,}).[•^s]^0167
Replace with:	Section^s1

Replacement in the reverse direction is also easy. In order to replace an expression of the type «Section 45» with one of the type «45. §», we can proceed as follows:

Find what:	Section[•^s]([0-9]{1,})
Replace with:	1.^s§

4. Reversing currency symbols 

Numbers occurring in the format $50,12 must be converted to the format 50,12 $ in the translation. Fortunately, this mechanical task can also be automated. The numbers following the dollar sign can be modified so that the $ sign will immediately follow the number after a non-breaking space.

Find what:	$([0-9.,]{1,})
Replace with:	1^s$

The expression can be easily modified so that the word «dollar» (or its plural in the respective language) will appear after the replacement instead of the $ sign.

Find what:	$([0-9.,]{1,})
Replace with:	1^sdollar

The Find what box means: look for any expression where a string consisting of numbers, periods and commas immediately follows the $ sign. The disadvantage of this method is that any phrase or sentence ending on «$,» or «$.» will also be converted. We must check before using the replace function whether there is such an expression in the text to be searched. If so, the «$,» and «$.» expressions to be left unchanged must first be replaced by any unique expression (e.g., $comma and $dot) using the regular find-and-replace function and they must be changed back after the replace operation. This artifice can be used in general whenever the harmful side effect of an otherwise useful replace operation is to be avoided. 

The reverse case, when the currency symbol is to be moved from a position after the number to before the number is not as simple and can only be accomplished in several steps. 

In a first step, the thousands separator spaces are replaced with non-breaking spaces (otherwise the $ sign would always appear before the last thousands group):

Find what:	([0-9]) ([0-9])
Replace with:	1^s2

In a second step, the space after the number is replaced, for example, with $$ and «attached» to the number:

Find what:	([0-9])[•^s]$
Replace with:	1$$

Now the currency symbol can be moved to precede the number:

Find what:	([0-9.,^s]{1,})$$
Replace with:	$1

5. Handling complex expressions 

When replacing complex expressions, it is convenient to first break down the expression into its components, test the replacement of the components, and then work out a replace formula for the entire expression. 

Let us take the example of the Hungarian expression «10. § (1) bekezdésének d)-f) pontja» into English, which may be «Paragraphs d)-f) of Subsection (1) of Section 10». In this case, the order of the individual expressions is also modified. 

«10. §» would be no problem on the basis of the explanations under point 3. So let us see the replacement of «(1) bekezdésének». We must do the following:

Find what:	(([0-9]{1,})) bekezdé[a-z]{1,}
Replace with:	Subsection 1

The novelty here is the use of the  «(»  and   «)»  combinations. The parenthesis with a backslash before it distinguishes it as an ordinary character from the same character functioning as an operator. Since the second opening and first closing parentheses are parts of the expression we are searching for (ordinary characters, in contrast to the first opening and second closing parentheses, which function as operators), we must type them as  «(»  and   «)»  in the Find what box. 

Let us examine the part «d)-f) pontja». The solution is the following:

Find what:	([a-z]{1,})?[a-z]{1,}))?pon[a-z]{1,}
Replace with:	Paragraphs 1

We used the familiar operators here. By replacing the hyphen and the space with the ? sign, we can make the replace operation handle a hyphen, an n-dash, or a non-breaking space properly. 

Finally, by assembling the components of the entire expression, we obtain:

Find what:	([0-9]{1,}).?§ (([0-9]{1,})) bekezdé[a-z]{1,} ([a-z]{1,})?[a-z]{1,}))?pon[a-z]{1,}
Replace with:	Paragraphs 3 of Subsection 2 of Section 1

It is worth noting how easily the reversal of the order in which the individual segments will appear is handled using 3, 2, etc.

Additional options 

The find-and-replace function can also be applied in many other cases, for example, in replacing date formats. It is worth learning how to record and write macros in Word, because even complex tasks can be performed by combining find-and-replace and macros. 

Often the solution of a problem requires some ingenuity. The specific replace formula must always be tested on a test file before using it in an actual translation. The test file can be produced by copying and pasting a portion of the actual text into a new document via the clipboard. 

Attention must be paid to typing the expressions accurately, since a single extra character may make the replace formula unusable. For this same reason, it is recommended that tested and proven replace formulas be saved for future use. They can also be recorded as macros, in which case they can be reused at any time, rather than reinvented over and over again. 

Much time can be saved in translating legal, financial, and technical texts by using properly written find-and-replace formulas. The time and effort spent familiarizing yourself with the advanced find-and-replace feature of Word may yield rich dividends in increased productivity.

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