Word replace by color

Steve has a document which, in various places, uses a text color that has an RGB value of 102, 255, 255. This, in the end, proved an inadequate color for his needs, so he needs to change the color of all that text to have an RGB value of 181, 255, 255. Steve wonders if there is a way to make the change all at once.

There are three ways you can go about approaching this problem. The first is to rely on styles. The idea would be to create a character style for the text you want in that particular color. When you are creating the document, apply that style to all those words you want to appear in that color. Then, when you need to change the color (or any other attributes of that text), simply make your changes to the style. This results in all instances of text to which the style is applied being updated, immediately.

The second approach is to simply use Find and Replace. Follow these steps:

1. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. Click the More button, if it is available. The dialog box expands.
3. Make sure the Find box is empty and the insertion point is in that box.
4. Click the Format button and then click Font. Word displays the Find Font dialog box.
5. Click the Font Color drop-down list and choose More Colors. Word displays the Colors dialog box.
6. Make sure the Custom tab is displayed.
7. Using the Red, Green, and Blue controls, specify the RGB values of the text you want to change.
8. Click OK to dismiss the Colors dialog box.
9. Click OK to dismiss the Find Font dialog box. The Find and Replace dialog box should still be visible, with the custom color showing under the Find box.
10. Make sure the Replace With box is empty and the insertion point is in that box.
11. Click the Format button and then click Font. Word displays the Replace Font dialog box.
12. Click the Font Color drop-down list and choose More Colors. Word displays the Colors dialog box.
13. Make sure the Custom tab is displayed.
14. Using the Red, Green, and Blue controls, specify the RGB values of the color you want to use.
15. Click OK to dismiss the Colors dialog box.
16. Click OK to dismiss the Replace Font dialog box. The Find and Replace dialog box should still be visible, with the custom color showing under the Replace box.
17. Click Replace All. Word displays a dialog box informing you how many replacements it made.
18. Click OK to dismiss the information dialog box.
19. Click Close to dismiss the Find and Replace dialog box.

Finally, you can always use a macro to make the replacements. This is particularly useful if you have a large number of documents in which you need to make the same change. The following macro essentially automates the Find-and-Replace steps just presented.

Sub FixColor()
    With Selection.Find
        .ClearFormatting
        .Font.Color = RGB(102, 255, 255)
        .Text = ""
        .Forward = True
        .Wrap = wdFindContinue
        .Format = True
        .MatchCase = False
        .MatchWholeWord = False
        .MatchWildcards = False
        .MatchSoundsLike = False
        .MatchAllWordForms = False

        .Replacement.ClearFormatting
        .Replacement.Font.Color = RGB(181, 255, 255)
        .Replacement.Text = ""
    End With
    Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

Author Bio

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. Learn more about Allen…

If you’ve used a custom colour for quite a bit of text in your document and want to replace it with another custom colour, you have two options:

• If the colour is part of a style, modify the font colour in the style’s settings—this should change all instances immediately. I won’t discuss this further.
• If the colour has been applied manually (i.e. not part of a style), then you’ll need to do a find and replace to find all instances of colour A and replace them with colour B.

Here’s how to change a manually applied custom colour using find and replace:

1. Open the Find and Replace dialog (Ctrl+H).
2. Make sure the cursor is in the Find field.
3. Click More.
4. Click Format.
5. Choose Font.
6. Click the drop-down arrow for Font Color.
7. Click More Colors.
8. Enter the RGB values you want to find (e.g. 255, 51, 153).
9. Click OK. The text under the Find field should show the RGB values you selected; for example: Font Color: Custom Color (RGB(255,51,153)).
10. Place your cursor in the Replace field.
11. Repeat Steps 4 to 7.
12. Enter the RGB values you want to use for the replace (e.g. 230, 131, 76).
13. Click OK. The text under the Find field should show the RGB values you selected; for example: Font Color: Custom Color (RGB(230,131,76)).
14. Click Find Next, then click Replace for the first one found.
15. Repeat Step 14 until all are found, or, if you are confident that you won’t mess up anything else, click Replace All.