The Find and Replace dialog does the work for you
Microsoft Word's Find and Replace feature searches your document for a word or phrase and swaps it for something else—all at once or one instance at a time. You open it with Ctrl+H on Windows or Command+Option+F on Mac. Type what you want to find in the first box, type what you want to replace it with in the second box, then choose whether to replace one at a time or all at once.
This saves you from manually hunting through a long document. If you renamed a client halfway through a report, or you want to change "the company" to the actual company name everywhere, Find and Replace does it in seconds.
Key Takeaways
- Open Find and Replace with Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac), then type the text to find and the text to replace it with.
- Click "Replace All" to change every instance at once, or "Replace" to go through one at a time and skip any you want to keep.
- Use "Match Case" if you need to find only lowercase or only uppercase versions of a word.
- The "Find Next" button shows you where the next match is without replacing it, so you can see the context first.
Step-by-step: replacing text one instance at a time
Open your document and press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac). The Find and Replace dialog box appears. Type the word or phrase you want to find in the "Find what" field at the top.
Click in the "Replace with" field below it and type what you want it to become. Now click the "Find Next" button. Word jumps to the first match and highlights it in your document. Look at the context to make sure this is a match you actually want to change.
If it is, click "Replace". Word makes the swap and moves to the next match. If you want to skip this one, click "Find Next" again without clicking "Replace". Keep going until you reach the end of the document. Word tells you when there are no more matches.
Step-by-step: replacing all instances at once
Open Find and Replace with Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac). Type the text to find in the "Find what" field and the replacement text in the "Replace with" field.
Before you click "Replace All", take a moment to think about whether the search might catch something you do not want to change. For example, searching for "cat" will also find "category" and "concatenate". If you want to match only the whole word "cat" by itself, check the box labeled "Match entire word only" first.
Once you are ready, click "Replace All". Word replaces every match in the document at once and tells you how many replacements it made. You cannot undo this one instance at a time—if you need to undo it, use Ctrl+Z when ready.
Using Match Case to find only uppercase or lowercase versions
By default, Find and Replace treats uppercase and lowercase the same way. If you search for "john", it finds "John", "JOHN", and "john". Sometimes you need to be more precise.
Check the "Match Case" box in the Find and Replace dialog to search for only the exact capitalization you type. This is useful if you want to change "the President" (capitalized) but leave "the president" (lowercase) alone, or if you need to fix a name that was typed inconsistently.
Finding text with special characters or line breaks
Find and Replace can search for things beyond plain words. If you want to find a paragraph break, a tab character, or a line break, you need to use a special code.
In the "Find what" field, type ^p to search for a paragraph break (the mark Word makes when you press Enter). Type ^t to search for a tab. These codes work in both the Find and Replace fields, so you can replace a paragraph break with a tab, or vice versa. Click "More Options" or "Additional Options" (the exact wording depends on your Word version) to see the full list of codes.
What to do if Find and Replace is not finding what you expect
If you search for a word and Word says it found zero matches, check whether you have accidentally turned on "Match Case" or "Match entire word only". These settings narrow the search, so a match that would normally be found gets skipped.
Also check whether your document has hidden formatting. Sometimes a word that looks like one thing on screen is actually split across multiple formatting runs—for example, part of it is bold and part is not. If you are having trouble, try searching for just a few letters instead of the whole word. You can also close the Find and Replace dialog and manually select the text you are looking for, then open Find and Replace again—Word will use your selection as the search term.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I undo Replace All if I made a mistake?
Yes. Press Ctrl+Z when ready after clicking "Replace All" to undo the entire replacement. If you have done other work since then, undo will reverse that work too, so it is best to undo right away. If you cannot undo, you will need to manually fix the replacements or close the document without saving.
How do I search for a question mark or asterisk?
Question marks and asterisks are special characters in Word's Find function. To search for them literally, put a backslash before them: type \? to find a question mark or \* to find an asterisk. This tells Word to treat them as regular characters instead of wildcards.
Can I find and replace across multiple documents at once?
No. Find and Replace works only on the document that is currently open. If you need to make the same change in many documents, you will need to open each one and run Find and Replace separately. Some people copy all their documents into one file temporarily, make the replacements, then split them back out.
What does "Match entire word only" do?
It makes sure Word finds only the word by itself, not as part of a longer word. If you search for "cat" without this box checked, it finds "cat", "category", "concatenate", and "scatter". With the box checked, it finds only "cat" standing alone.