The Find and Replace dialog does the work for you
Microsoft Word's Find and Replace feature lets you search for a word or phrase and swap it out for something else throughout your document in seconds. Instead of scrolling through page by page to find and change each instance by hand, you open the Find and Replace dialog, type what you're looking for and what you want instead, and Word handles the rest. You can replace one instance at a time or all of them at once.
The fastest way to open Find and Replace is to press Ctrl+H on Windows or Command+Option+F on Mac. You can also go to the Home tab, click the arrow next to Find, and select Replace.
Key Takeaways
- Press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac) to open the Find and Replace dialog when ready.
- Type the text you want to find in the first field and the replacement text in the second field, then click Replace All to change every instance at once.
- Use the Match Case option if you need to distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters, or Match Whole Words Only to avoid replacing parts of longer words.
- Click Replace instead of Replace All if you want to review each match before Word changes it.
- The Find and Replace dialog stays open so you can run multiple searches without reopening it.
Step-by-step: replacing text in your document
Open the Find and Replace dialog by pressing Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac). The dialog box appears with two main fields: Find What at the top and Replace With below it.
Type the word or phrase you want to find in the Find What field. For example, if you want to change "colour" to "color" throughout your document, type "colour" here. Then click in the Replace With field and type "color".
Now you have two choices. Click Replace All to change every instance in the document at once, or click Replace to change them one at a time. If you choose Replace, Word highlights the first match and you can click Replace to change it or Find Next to skip it and move to the next match.
When you're done, close the dialog by clicking the X button or pressing Escape. Word shows you a message telling you how many replacements it made.
Using Match Case and Match Whole Words Only
The Find and Replace dialog has checkboxes for Match Case and Match Whole Words Only. These options help you be more precise about what Word searches for.
Match Case tells Word to distinguish between uppercase and lowercase letters. If you search for "apple" with Match Case checked, Word will find "apple" but not "Apple" or "APPLE". This is useful when you're replacing a proper noun or a word that should always be capitalized in a certain way.
Match Whole Words Only tells Word to find only complete words, not parts of longer words. If you search for "read" without this option, Word finds "read", "reading", and "thread". With Match Whole Words Only checked, it finds only "read" by itself. This prevents accidental replacements in words you didn't intend to change.
Undoing a replace if something went wrong
If you click Replace All and realize the results aren't what you wanted, you can undo the entire operation. Press Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac) when ready after the replacement. Word reverses all the changes you just made and restores your document to how it was before.
This is why clicking Replace All can be risky if you're not certain about your search terms. If you're unsure, use the Replace button instead to review each match before Word changes it. Once you close the document without saving, you can no longer undo the replacements, so save your work only when you're confident the changes are correct.
Finding and replacing with special characters or line breaks
Word can search for and replace special characters like tabs, paragraph marks, and line breaks. To do this, you need to use special codes in the Find What and Replace With fields. Click More at the bottom of the Find and Replace dialog to see the full set of options, then look for a button labeled Special.
Common codes include ^p for a paragraph mark (a line break), ^t for a tab, and ^n for a manual line break. For example, if you want to replace every paragraph mark with two paragraph marks (adding space between paragraphs), you would type "^p" in Find What and "^p^p" in Replace With, then click Replace All.
This feature is most useful when you're cleaning up a document that was imported from another program or pasted from the web, where formatting may not have transferred correctly.
Using Find and Replace with formatting
You can search for text that has specific formatting and replace it with text in different formatting. For example, you might want to find all instances of bold text that says "Warning" and change it to red text that says "Caution".
To do this, click More in the Find and Replace dialog to expand the options. In the Find What field, type "Warning", then click the Format button and select Font. Choose Bold from the list. Now Word knows to search for the word "Warning" only when it appears in bold. In the Replace With field, type "Caution", click Format again, and this time choose a red font color. Click Replace All and Word makes the change.
This approach takes a few extra steps but saves time when you need to change both the text and how it looks throughout a long document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I search for text and replace it with nothing to delete it?
Yes. Leave the Replace With field empty and click Replace All. Word removes every instance of the search term from your document. This is useful for deleting repeated words, extra spaces, or formatting codes you no longer need.
What's the difference between Find and Replace?
Find (Ctrl+F) only searches for text and highlights it so you can see where it appears. Replace (Ctrl+H) lets you search for text and swap it out for something else. If you only need to locate something without changing it, use Find. If you need to change it, use Replace.
Does Find and Replace work in headers, footers, and text boxes?
Yes, but Word searches the main document body first. If you want to search only in headers or footers, click in the header or footer before opening Find and Replace. For text boxes, you may need to search the main document, then manually check text boxes afterward.
Can I undo Replace All if I saved the document?
No. Once you save and close the document, the undo history is gone. Before using Replace All on an important document, save a backup copy first so you have a version to return to if the replacements don't work out the way you expected.