The Find & Replace tool does the work for you
Microsoft Word's Find & Replace feature lets you search for a word or phrase and swap it out for something else in seconds—across your whole document or just one section. You open it with Ctrl+H on Windows or Command+H on Mac, type what you want to find and what you want to replace it with, then choose whether to replace one instance at a time or all of them at once.
This saves you from scrolling through a 20-page document hunting for every mention of "client" when you need to change it to "customer", or fixing a name that was spelled wrong throughout. You can also use it to remove words entirely, change formatting (like making all instances of a word bold), or swap punctuation.
Key Takeaways
- Open Find & Replace with Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+H (Mac), or go to Home > Replace in the ribbon.
- Type the word or phrase you want to find in the "Find what" box and the replacement text in the "Replace with" box.
- Click "Replace All" to change every instance at once, or "Replace" to change them one by one so you can review each match.
- Use "More Options" to search only whole words, match case, or find words with specific formatting.
- You can leave the "Replace with" box empty to delete a word or phrase from your document.
Opening Find & Replace and entering your search terms
The fastest way to open Find & Replace is to press Ctrl+H if you are on Windows, or Command+H on Mac. If you prefer using the menu, go to the Home tab in the ribbon at the top, find the Editing group on the right side, and click Replace.
A dialog box will open with two main fields. The top field is labeled "Find what"—type the word or phrase you want to search for here. The second field is "Replace with"—type what you want it to become. If you want to delete a word instead of replacing it, just leave the "Replace with" box empty.
For example, if your document says "Please contact our support team" in five places and you want it to say "Please contact our help desk" instead, you would type "support team" in the Find box and "help desk" in the Replace box.
Replacing one instance at a time versus all at once
Once you have entered your search term and replacement, you have two choices. "Replace All" will change every single match in your document in one click. "Replace" will find the first match, highlight it, and wait for you to confirm before it replaces that one instance—then it moves to the next match.
Use "Replace All" when you are confident the replacement is correct everywhere. For example, if you are changing a company name from "Acme Corp" to "Acme Industries" throughout a contract, Replace All is safe and fast. Use "Replace" one at a time when the word might mean different things in different places, or when you want to review each change before it happens. If you search for "bank" and want to replace it with "financial institution", you might find that one sentence says "river bank" and you do not want to change that one.
After you click Replace All, Word will tell you how many replacements it made. If the number surprises you, you can undo the whole operation by pressing Ctrl+Z.
Using More Options to narrow your search
Click the "More Options" button (or "Options" on some versions) to reveal additional search settings. These let you be more precise about what Word finds and replaces.
Match case makes the search case-sensitive. If you search for "The" with Match case on, it will find "The" at the start of a sentence but not "the" in the middle of one. This is useful if you are replacing a proper noun and do not want to accidentally change common words that happen to be spelled the same way.
Find whole words only prevents Word from finding your search term if it is part of a larger word. If you search for "read" without this option, it will also match "reading" and "reader". With "Find whole words only" turned on, it will only match the standalone word "read".
Use wildcards and Regular expressions are advanced options for people who need to find patterns rather than exact text—for instance, finding any number or any word that starts with a certain letter. Most everyday replacements do not need these.
Replacing text with specific formatting
You can also use Find & Replace to change the formatting of words, not just the words themselves. For example, you might want to make every instance of a product name bold, or change all instances of a heading from one font size to another.
To do this, open Find & Replace and enter your search term. Then click in the "Replace with" field and click "Format" (or "No Format" if you see it). A menu will appear letting you choose font, size, color, bold, italic, and other formatting options. Set the formatting you want the replacement text to have, then click Replace All.
You can also search for text that already has specific formatting. Click in the "Find what" field, enter your search term, then click Format to specify that you only want to find instances of that word that are, for example, underlined or in a certain color. This is useful if you have used the same word in different ways throughout your document and only want to replace some of them.
Undoing a replacement and fixing mistakes
If you click Replace All and realize the replacement was wrong, press Ctrl+Z when ready to undo it. Word will reverse all the changes at once. This is why Replace All is usually safe—you can always undo.
If you replaced text one at a time and changed some instances you now regret, you have two options. You can still press Ctrl+Z, but that will undo your last replacement only. If you want to undo multiple replacements, keep pressing Ctrl+Z until you reach the point you want. Alternatively, you can use Find & Replace again to swap the replacement back to the original—if you changed "client" to "customer" and now want some of them back to "client", search for "customer" and replace it with "client" in just those spots.
Searching across multiple documents
The standard Find & Replace tool works within the document you have open. If you need to replace text across multiple Word documents at once, you will need a different approach.
One option is to open each document separately and run Find & Replace in each one. Another option, if you have many documents, is to use Word's Navigation Pane to search across a folder. Go to File > Open, navigate to the folder containing your documents, and use the search box at the top right of the Open dialog. This will show you all files containing your search term, though you will still need to open and replace in each document individually.
If you work with a large number of documents regularly, consider using a dedicated find-and-replace tool designed for batch operations, or ask your IT department whether your organization has a solution for this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I search for a line break or paragraph mark?
Yes. In the Find & Replace dialog, click More Options, then check "Use regular expressions". In the Find field, type ^p to search for a paragraph break or ^l (lowercase L) for a line break. You can replace these with text, another break, or nothing at all to join paragraphs together.
What if Find & Replace says "Search key not found"?
Word could not find any match for your search term. Check that you spelled it correctly, that you are searching in the right document, and that you did not accidentally turn on "Match case" or "Find whole words only" when you should not have. Try searching for just part of the word to see if it exists in your document.
Can I replace text in headers and footers?
Yes. Find & Replace searches headers and footers by default. If you want to exclude them, open More Options and uncheck "Search in" options if they appear, though most versions search everywhere automatically.
How do I replace a word but keep the original capitalization?
Unfortunately, Word's standard Find & Replace does not have a built-in option to preserve the original case pattern. If you need "Client" to become "Customer" and "client" to become "customer", you will need to do two separate replacements: one for "Client" and one for "client".
Can I see all the matches before I replace them?
Yes. Click "Find All" instead of Replace or Replace All. Word will highlight every match in your document and show you a count at the bottom of the dialog. You can then review them before deciding whether to proceed with replacement.