(Without Breaking Everything)
There are a few things that should terrify everyone: clowns, sharks, a clown-shark-tornado, and using Find and Replace with unintended consequences.
To quell your nightmares, we’ve outlined the basics of using Find and Replace in Microsoft Word and Google Docs.
No matter which word processing software you prefer, don’t miss the final “Pitfalls” section—a list of the most common ways people break everything with Find and Replace and how to avoid them.
Using Find and Replace in Microsoft Word
If you’re new to the Find and Find and Replace tools, the best approach is using it on a case-by-case basis.
In other words, instead of trying to find and highlight every instance of your search en masse, look through them one by one, ensuring the initial search reflects your intent. If you were searching for instances of “corn” and realize all four instances of “unicorn” were also highlighted, you can correct your search (see Pitfalls section below). When you’re replacing text or punctuation marks, you can do so one at a time as well, confirming that each one is being replaced exactly as you intended.
This may sound cumbersome, but you’ll still save time versus skimming and manually deleting and retyping. Once you’re more confident in the mechanics of this tool, finding and replacing all instances will be less terrifying and error-prone.
Opening Find and Replace
You can open Find and/or Find and Replace in two ways:
- The Menu Bar: Navigate to Home in the main ribbon. Select the Editing dropdown menu. Choose Find or Replace.
- Shortcut Keys: Use the shortcut key Control + F to bring up the Find navigation pane/pop-up menu. Use the shortcut key Control + H to bring up the Replace pop-up menu.
Find and Replace Options
There are plenty of options you can toggle on or off to help you accurately filter your search. View these by clicking the More button. Current examples include:
- Match case
- Sounds like (English)
- Ignore punctuation characters
- Ignore white-space characters
When you select these options, they’ll appear under the Find what search bar. You can also choose Reading Highlight and Find In to customize your search.
You can view search results one by one. Choose Replace or Replace All for a case-by-case replacement or en masse replacement, as mentioned above.
Using Find and Replace in Google Docs
There are some subtle but important differences between Microsoft Word’s and Google Docs’ Find and Replace tools. Google Docs’ isn’t quite as robust, so be sure to read the “Pitfalls” section below for a brief overview of how to compensate and avoid introducing errors to your documents.
We also suggest the same approach as a newbie to Microsoft Word Find and Replace: Start slow; find and replace a single instance at a time until you’re comfortable with the tool.
Opening Find and Replace
You can open Find and/or Find and Replace in two ways:
- The Menu Bar: Select Edit. Find and Replace is the last option in the dropdown menu.
- Shortcut Keys: These are identical to the Microsoft Word shortcut keys. Use the shortcut key Control + F to bring up the Find pop-up search bar. Use the shortcut key Control + H to bring up the Replace pop-up menu.
Find and Replace Options
There are only three options you can toggle on or off to help you accurately filter your search. They are always viewable in the main pop-up menu:
- Match case
- Use regular expressions (e.g., \n for newline, \t for tab)
- Ignore Latin diacritics
Google Docs automatically highlights text that fits Find/Find and Replace search parameters.
Just like Microsoft Word, you can view and choose Replace or Replace All for a case-by-case replacement or en masse replacement, as mentioned above.
Find and Replace Pitfalls
These are the sneaky little banana peels that will trip up your Find and Replace jobs. Take note so you can avoid them for good.
- If you misspelled a word in your document (especially as a homophone), then your search won’t catch all the instances you expect. Prevent this by proofreading your document and using Spell Check beforehand.
- Similarly spelled words. If you search for the word “corn” and your document is about a unicorn named Betty, guess which word might come up in your search? Yup. Every instance of “unicorn.” How can you prevent this issue? See Pitfall #3.
- White space. Ignore white space to your own detriment. Word processors are precise. So if you only tell Find and Replace to look for “corn” without any spaces on both sides of the word, it will also fetch every instance of “unicorn.” There are hundreds of examples like this. Use white spaces to ensure your search is as precise as the Find and Replace tool (Microsoft Word allows you to toggle Ignore white-space characters on or off.)
- Word will preserve the current capitalization of the word you’re replacing. Google Docs will not, though it can search using Match case. For that reason, if you’re working in Google Docs, perform two Find and Replace searches on upper and lower cases, as applicable, in order to avoid this issue.
- Highlighted text. This will sound silly, but I can’t tell you how many times it’s come up. Google Docs automatically highlights search results. So if you can’t figure out why certain words or phrases are green, check to see if your Find search bar is open. Then close it. Voilà.
- The browser search bar. Google Docs is operated in a browser. That’s no problem except for when you accidentally use the browser Find tool instead of the Google Docs Find When it returns no results, you might beat your keyboard in frustration before realizing the following: You haven’t selected anything in the Google Docs pane, so you’re not actually searching the document. Whoops.
Finally, if you introduce an error or realize something has gone wrong with your Find and Replace operation, don’t freak out! Your salvation is at hand in the form of our beloved Undo button.
If only there were an Undo button for life choices, we’d be golden.
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Thanks for reading! We post a new writing guide, spelling quiz, or grammar tip every other week. Be sure to subscribe to our email updates to get them delivered to your inbox.
Here are some related resources and a couple of fun spelling quizzes:
- Google Docs vs. Microsoft Word: Which Is Better?
- How to Use Track Changes Even If You Hate Using It
- QUIZ: Most Notable Grammar Blunders of All Time
- Can You Ace This Spelling Quiz?
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