The Find and Replace tool replaces one word or phrase with another throughout your document at once

Open the Find and Replace dialog by pressing Ctrl+H on Windows or Command+Option+F on Mac. Type the word you want to find in the "Find what" field and the replacement word in the "Replace with" field. Then click "Replace All" to change every instance at once, or "Replace" to change them one at a time and review each change before it happens.

This tool saves time when you realize you've spelled a name wrong throughout a 20-page document, or when you need to swap out a phrase like "the client" for "the customer" everywhere it appears. It works on whole words, partial words, or exact phrases — whatever you type in the Find field is what Word will search for.

Key Takeaways

  • Press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac) to open Find and Replace, then type what you want to find and what you want instead.
  • Click "Replace All" to change every instance at once, or "Replace" to go through each one and decide whether to change it.
  • The tool finds partial matches by default — searching for "cat" will also find "catalog" and "concatenate" unless you check "Match entire word only".
  • You can search for formatting (like bold text or a specific font) as well as words, and replace it with different formatting.
  • If you make a mistake, press Ctrl+Z when ready after to undo all the replacements at once.

How to find and replace one word at a time

Click "Replace" instead of "Replace All" to go through your document one match at a time. Word will highlight the first instance of the word you're looking for. You can then click "Replace" to change that one, "Replace All" to change this one and every other one after it, or "Find Next" to skip it and move to the next match without changing anything.

This approach is slower but safer when you're not sure whether every instance should be replaced. For example, if you search for "bank" and want to replace it with "financial institution," you might want to skip instances where "bank" refers to a river bank.

Avoiding accidental replacements with word boundaries

By default, Word finds partial matches. If you search for "read" it will find "read," "reading," "already," and "thread." To find only the exact word "read" by itself, check the box labeled "Match entire word only" before you search.

You can also use wildcards for more control. Check "Use wildcards" and type read\< to find "read" only when it's at the end of a word (so "read" and "already" match, but "reading" does not). This is useful when you need precision but don't want to go through every match manually.

Finding and replacing formatting, not just words

You can search for text that has specific formatting — like all instances of bold text, or all text in a particular font — and replace it with different formatting. Click the "Format" button (or "No Format" in some versions) at the bottom of the Find and Replace dialog, then choose what formatting you're looking for.

For example, you could find all instances of the word "important" that are in bold and replace them with the same word in regular (non-bold) text. Or find all text in Times New Roman and replace it with Arial. This is much faster than selecting and reformatting text manually.

Undoing a replace-all mistake

If you click "Replace All" and realize when ready that you made a mistake, press Ctrl+Z right away to undo all the replacements at once. Word treats the entire "Replace All" action as a single undo step, so one keystroke will revert every change.

If you've already closed the Find and Replace dialog and done other work, you can still undo — just keep pressing Ctrl+Z to step backward through your recent actions until you reach the point before the replacement happened. The undo history usually goes back dozens of steps.

When Find and Replace doesn't work the way you expect

If Word isn't finding the word you're looking for, check whether you have "Match case" turned on. If it's checked, searching for "Word" will not find "word" in lowercase. Uncheck it unless you specifically need to match uppercase and lowercase exactly.

Also check whether you're searching in the right part of the document. The Find and Replace dialog searches from your cursor position forward by default. If your cursor is at the end of the document, it won't find anything. Click at the beginning of your document first, or use the "Find All" button to search the entire document at once and see how many matches exist.

Finding text with line breaks or special characters

To find and replace text that spans multiple lines or contains special characters like tabs, you need to use special codes. Enable "Use regular expressions" (or "Use wildcards" in older versions) and type ^p to represent a paragraph break or ^t for a tab. For example, searching for word1^pword2 will find "word1" on one line followed by "word2" on the next line.

This is useful when you're cleaning up a document that was imported from another program and has formatting you need to standardize. You can find every instance of a tab followed by a space and replace it with just a space, for example.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I undo a replace-all if I've already saved the document?

If you saved after the replacement, undo won't work — the changes are permanent in the saved file. Open the file, press Ctrl+Z repeatedly to step back through your recent edits, and see if you can reach the point before the replacement. If not, you may need to use an earlier version of the file if you have one saved.

How do I find and replace across multiple documents at once?

Word's Find and Replace tool works on one document at a time. To replace text in multiple documents, open each one and run Find and Replace separately. Some third-party tools can do batch replacements across many files, but Word itself does not have this built-in.

What's the difference between "Replace" and "Replace All"?

"Replace" changes one instance at a time and lets you review each match before it changes. "Replace All" changes every match in the document when ready without asking. Use "Replace" when you're unsure whether every match should be changed, and "Replace All" when you're confident all matches need the same replacement.

Can I search for a word only if it appears at the start of a sentence?

Word's basic Find and Replace doesn't have a built-in option for this. You can use regular expressions (enable "Use regular expressions" and search for ^p[space]word to find the word after a paragraph break and space), but this requires knowing the regex syntax. For most cases, using "Match entire word only" and reviewing matches manually is simpler.