Substitute Text

Often, you want to find a word or phrase because you need to substitute some other word or phrase for it.

You can substitute a word or phrase for all occurrences of the original word or phrase, or you can selectively substitute.

1. Click Edit.

2. Click Replace.

   

   The Find and Replace window appears.

3. Type the word or phrase you want to replace here.

4. Type the word or phrase you want Word to substitute here.

5. Click Find Next.

   

   Word highlights the first occurrence of the word or phrase that it finds.

   If you do not want to change the highlighted occurrence, you can click Find Next to ignore it.

6. Click Replace.

   To change all occurrences, you can click Replace All.

   Word replaces the original word or phrase with the word or phrase you specify as the substitute.

   

7. Repeat steps 5 to 6, replacing or ignoring words or phrases as appropriate.

   When Word finds no more occurrences of the word or phrase, a dialog box appears.

8. Click OK.

9. Click Cancel to close the Find and Replace window.

   

Can I find italic text and change it to boldface text?

Follow steps 1 to 2 and click More to expand the window. Follow steps 3 to 4, but, instead of typing text, click Format and then click Font. In the Font style list of the Font dialog box that appears, click Italic for step 3 and Bold for step 4. Then complete steps 5 to 9.

Can I search for and replace special characters such as tabs or paragraph marks?

Yes. Follow steps 1 to 2 and click More to expand the window. Then, follow steps 3 to 4, but instead of typing text, click Special to display a menu of special characters. For step 3, select the special character you want to find. For step 4, select the special character you want to substitute. Then complete steps 5 to 9.