Word find all abbreviations

You, too, can find all acronyms in a Word document, regardless of their format.

Why would you need to find all of the acronyms in a Word doc? Simple. So you can be much more thorough in much less time.

You can easily find all acronyms in a Word document—regardless of whether they’re in in AAA, A&A, or AaA format. As a bonus, you become The Most Knowledgeable Person in Your Office.

Translators, let’s say you’re working on a team project for which you need to create a glossary. Quickly finding all the acronyms that appear in your document saves you a lot of “visual scanning” work.

Copy editors, you may need to build an acronym list for your client. Creating one manually is tedious. Using the Find and Replace feature to find all acronyms in a Word document saves you a lot of time and ensures that your list is complete.

How to Find All Acronyms in a Word Document

Finding All Acronyms in AAA Format

The expression below finds all “standard” acronyms in your document.

Here we’re instructing Word to find strings in uppercase letters that are at least two characters long.

1. 1. In Word’s Find dialog box, check Use wildcards.
   2. In the Find what: field, type the following sequence:
      
      <[A-Z]{2,}>

Use the regular expression <[A-Z]{2,}>
to find all acronyms in a Word document in AAA format.

Finding All Acronyms in A&A Format

Your document may contain strings such as S&P (Standard and Poor’s) and M&E (monitoring and evaluation). If so, find them by including an ampersand (&) in your regular expression.

The expression below means “Find a three-character acronym, the middle character of which is an ampersand.”

1. In Word’s Find dialog box, check Use wildcards.
2. In the Find what: field, type the following sequence:
   
   <[A-Z]&[A-Z]>

Finding All Acronyms in AaA Format

RedLine does editing work for a client that produces reports for USAID. These reports often include “camel case” acronyms such as GoB (Government of Botswana) and GoU (Government of Uzbekistan). The first operation mentioned in this post would miss these strings. But we can change the expression to find all the camel case acronyms.

Here we want to find three-letter acronyms, the first and third characters of which are uppercase, the second character of which is lowercase.

1. In Word’s Find dialog box, check Use wildcards.
2. In the Find what: field, type the following sequence:
   
   <[A-Z][a-z][A-Z]>

Finding All Acronyms in AA1 Format

What if your text includes chemical compounds? CO2, H2O, and PM2.5 would not be found using the first tip in this post. If you modify your expression, however, Word will find all alphanumeric strings. (See Figure 2.)

The expression below means “Find strings in uppercase letters that are at least two characters long and followed by a number.”

1. 1. In Word’s Find dialog box, check Use wildcards.
   2. In the Find what: field, type the following sequence:
      
      <[A-Z]{2,}[0-9]>

Figure 2. Use the regular expression <[A-Z]{2,}[0-9]>
to find all acronyms in a Word document in AA1 format.

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Check out some of our other Word productivity tips.

Why List Abbreviations?

When introducing an abbreviation in writing, you will usually need to define it first. But in a longer document, you may use quite a lot of abbreviations. And they may be scattered throughout your writing.

In cases like this, a list of abbreviations can work as a reference point for your reader, meaning they can look up any abbreviation in one place rather than having to find where it was introduced. Typically, this list will:

• Appear early in the document, just after the table of contents.
• List all abbreviations, acronyms, and initialisms alphabetically.
• Define each abbreviation alongside its shortened form.

If you are using one, you may also want to check your style guide for advice on defining abbreviations and how to list them.

How to Create a List of Abbreviations in Microsoft Word

You can create a list of abbreviations manually by going through your work and noting each one down, then adding them all to a list at the start of your document. However, you can also use a combination of Microsoft Word and Excel to quickly generate a list of abbreviations.

The first step is to find all the abbreviations in your document. To do this:

• Go to Home > Editing > Find > Advanced Find on the main ribbon.
• In the Find what… field, add “[A-Z,0-9]{2,}” (minus the quote marks).
• Click the More > > button and select Use wildcards.
• Under the Find In menu, click Main Document.

This will then select all strings of capital letters and numbers in the document, which should include all acronyms and initialisms. Once you have done this, you can use Ctrl + C to copy them.

To then create your list, you will need a helping hand from Excel:

• Open an Excel spreadsheet.
• Paste the copied abbreviations into a column.
• Select the column and go to Home > Editing > Sort & Filter > Sort A to Z.
• Remove any duplicates, errors, or common abbreviations that do not need defining (e.g., TV, PC, UFO, VIP). Alternatively, you can select the column with the abbreviations and go to Data > Remove Duplicates (just remember to remove any errors or common abbreviations manually).
• Add a new row at the top of the column titled “Abbreviation.”
• Add a header in the next column along saying “Definition.”
• Write the full terminology for each abbreviation in the corresponding cell.
• Copy and paste both columns to your Microsoft Word document.

You will then have a list of abbreviations and definitions ready to go!

Academic and Business Proofreading

If you want anyone to check whether you have used abbreviations correctly in your writing, we have expert proofreaders and editors available 24/7. We also offer dedicated academic and business proofreading services. Why not submit a document today and find out how we could help you?

Easily Find All the Acronyms in Your Word Documents

Can I use abbreviations in a research paper?

As a general rule, all non-standard abbreviations/acronyms should be written out in full on first use (in both the abstract and the paper itself) and followed by the abbreviated form in parentheses, as in ‘the American Psychological Association (APA)’.

How many types of abbreviations are there?

There are four different types of abbreviations in English: Initialism. Acronym. Shortening.

What are the most popular abbreviations?

Common text abbreviations

• ROFL: Rolling on floor laughing.
• STFU: Shut the *swear word!* up.
• ICYMI: In case you missed it.
• TL;DR: Too long, didn’t read.
• LMK: Let me know.
• NVM: Nevermind.
• TGIF: Thank goodness it’s Friday.
• TBH: To be honest.

1. In Word, Open the Find window (Ctrl + F)
2. Click More and then check the box labeled Use Wildcards.
3. In the Find What field, enter this phrase: <[A-Z]{2,}>
4. Click Reading Highlight, and then click Highlight All.

What are the parts of a thesis?

4 Parts of the Thesis

• the introduction of the topic,
• the theoretical basis,
• the implementation of the project,
• the research results, and.
• the discussion.

What are the parts of thesis Chapter 1?

The first chapter of a proposal consists of several subheadings or sections: background, research questions, objectives, limitations, rationale, hypothesis (optional), statement of the problem, and methodology.

How do you write a chapter 1 thesis?

Writing Chapter 1: The Introduction

1. The introduction of your Doctoral Dissertation, Masters Thesis, or Capstone Project.
2. Introductory Paragraph.
3. Background of the Problem.
4. Statement of the Problem.
5. Purpose of the Study.
6. Significance of the Study.
7. Primary Research Questions.
8. Hypotheses.