Find and Replace in Word

Don’t waste time scanning through your document to find text and replace it with something new. The find and replace commands can do this for you with just a few clicks of your mouse.

Find Text

You can use the Navigation pane to search for specific words or phrases in a document.

  1. Click Find on the Home tab.

    2. The Navigation pane appears on the left, displaying the Results view.

    Press Ctrl + F.

  2. Click in the Search document box in the Navigation pane and type the text you want to find.
    Find Text

    3. The search runs automatically. Results are highlighted in the document, and the Navigation pane lists all instances of the word.

  3. Click a search result to jump to it in the document.

    4. You can use the arrows under the search box to jump to the Previous or Next search result.

  4. Click Close when you're finished.
    5. Find Text

The Navigation pane closes.

Advanced Find

To search your documents for more specific items, such as certain capitalization or only whole words, use Advanced Find.

  1. Click Find button list arrow.
  2. Select Advanced Find.

    3. The Find and Replace dialog box opens.

  3. Type the word you're looking for in the Find box.

    By default, the Find and Replace dialog box only shows the basics—a search field. There are more options available if you expand the dialog box.

  4. Click the More button.
    5. Advanced Find

    The advanced options here let you set some options on how to conduct the search.

  5. Check the advanced criteria you want to use.

    You can choose to exactly match the case or only search for whole words. You can also use wildcards, or ignore punctuation and spacing.

  6. Click Find Next.

    Word navigates to and selects the next instance that fits the additional criteria.

  7. Click Close when you're done.
    Advanced Find

The Find and Replace dialog box closes.

Replace Text

If you’ve spelled something incorrectly in multiple places, Word can fix them all with just a few steps.

  1. Click Replace on the Home tab.

    2. The Find and Replace dialog box opens to the Replace tab.

  2. Type the word you need to replace in the Find what text field.
  3. Type the word you need to replace in the Replace with text field.
  4. Select a replacement option.
    • Replace: Replaces the first instance of the word. Keep clicking to fix them one at a time.
    • Replace All: Fixes all instances of the word at once.
    Replace Text

    Once all the instances of the word have been replaced, a dialog box will pop up to let you know it’s complete.

  5. Click OK.
  6. Click Close when you're done.
    Replace Text

The Find and Replace dialog box closes.
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