Finding and replacing text (Word 2007, 2010)

Finding and replacing text

• Sometimes documents can be very long and you may need to search that document for a particular word or phrase.  You can use the built-in search feature to do this for you.  If you need to find a particular word or phrase and replace this item with alternative text, then you can use the search and replace feature.  WARNING: Using the search and replace feature sounds great, but you need to be careful.  I always make a backup copy of a document before using this feature as it is very easy to get it horribly wrong.  Many words have within them smaller words.  The word WARNING for instance has the words WAR and WARN within it, and if you replaced the word WAR with something else, then the first three letters of the word WARNING will also be replaced.  There are ways to stop Microsoft Word from doing this, but you must be careful! 

Finding text

• Open a document called Searching and replacing. 

• Click on the Find button, located within the Editing section of the Home tab. This will display the Find dialog box. 

• Within the Find what section type in the text you wish to search for, in this case type in the word Internet.  Click on the Find Next button. The next occurrence of the word Internet will be found and highlighted within the document.  Keep clicking on the Find Next button to find more occurrences of the word.  When there are no more instances of the text to be found you will see the following dialog box. 

• Close the Find dialog box.  TIP: An easy way to display the Find dialog box is to press Ctrl+F.

Replacing text

• Click on the Replace button, located within the Editing section of the Home tab.      This will display the Replace dialog box. In this case we will replace the text World Wide Web with WWW, as illustrated.

  Click on the Find Next button.  The next instance of the text will be selected.  Click on the Replace button.  In the same way replace all instanced of the text World Wide Web with WWW.  TIP: To display the Replace display box, press Ctrl+H.

• Save your changes and close the document.