The basic Find and Replace steps
Open the Find and Replace dialog by pressing Ctrl+H on Windows or Command+Option+F on Mac. A box will appear with two text fields: one labeled "Find" and one labeled "Replace With". Type the text you want to find in the first field, type what you want to replace it with in the second field, then click Replace All to change every instance at once, or Replace to change them one at a time.
If you only want to find text without replacing it, press Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac) instead. This opens the simpler Find toolbar, which highlights every match in your document and lets you move between them using the arrow buttons.
Word will tell you how many replacements it made in a small notification box. If you made a mistake, press Ctrl+Z when ready to undo all the replacements at once.
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 to replace it with.
- Click Replace All to change every instance in the document at once, or click Replace to change them one at a time and review each change.
- Use the More Options button to search only in specific parts of your document, match whole words only, or ignore capitalization differences.
- Undo with Ctrl+Z when ready if you replace the wrong text, since Replace All changes everything in seconds.
When to use Replace All versus Replace one at a time
Replace All is fastest when you are certain the text you are finding appears only in the places you want to change it. For example, if your document says "teh" throughout and you want to change it to "the", Replace All is safe because "teh" is unlikely to appear anywhere you want to keep it.
Use the one-at-a-time Replace button when the text you are finding could legitimately appear in multiple contexts. If you search for "run" and want to replace some instances with "sprint" but keep others as "run", you need to review each match. Word will highlight the match in your document and ask you to confirm before replacing it.
Using More Options to narrow your search
Click the More Options button (or Options on Mac) to reveal additional search controls. The most useful ones are:
- Match case: Find only text that matches the exact capitalization. Checking this means "Word" and "word" are treated as different.
- Whole words only: Find only complete words, not parts of words. Without this, searching for "cat" will also find "category".
- Use wildcards: Search using pattern symbols instead of exact text. For example, ^p finds paragraph breaks and ^t finds tabs.
If you do not need these options, you can collapse them again by clicking More Options a second time to keep the dialog smaller.
Finding and replacing line breaks, tabs, and special characters
To find or replace invisible characters like paragraph breaks or tabs, you must turn on Use wildcards in More Options. Then use these codes in your Find or Replace field:
| Character | Code to type |
|---|---|
| Paragraph break | ^p |
| Tab | ^t |
| Manual line break | ^l (lowercase L) |
| Any single character | ? |
| Any number of characters | * |
For example, if you have a list where each item starts with a tab and you want to remove those tabs, search for ^t in the Find field, leave the Replace field empty, and click Replace All. The tabs will disappear.
What Find and Replace cannot do
Find and Replace works only on the text itself, not on formatting like bold, italics, or font color. If you want to find all bold text and change it to italic, Find and Replace will not do that directly — you would need to use Find to locate the text, then manually change its formatting.
Find and Replace also cannot search inside headers, footers, or text boxes unless you click into those areas first. If you need to replace text in a header, click on the header to open it for editing, then open Find and Replace while the header is active.
The search does not cross document boundaries. If you have multiple Word files open and want to replace text in all of them, you must open Find and Replace in each document separately.
Fixing common mistakes with Find and Replace
If you replaced text you did not mean to replace, press Ctrl+Z when ready. This undoes the entire Replace All operation in one step. If you have already made other edits since the replacement, you may need to press Ctrl+Z multiple times to get back to before the replacement happened.
If Find and Replace says "Search key not found", it means the exact text you typed does not exist in your document. Check for extra spaces, different capitalization, or typos in your search term. If you have Match case turned on, try turning it off — Word is case-sensitive when that option is checked.
If you replaced something and now realize you need to undo only some of the replacements, undo the entire operation and use the one-at-a-time Replace button instead, reviewing each match before you confirm it.
Using Find and Replace across multiple documents
Word's Find and Replace tool works on one document at a time. If you need to replace text in multiple files, you have two options: open each file and run Find and Replace in each one, or use a third-party tool designed for batch replacements across folders.
If you are working with a template or a document you reuse often, consider making the replacement part of your standard editing process. Some people create a checklist of common replacements they always make (like company name changes or outdated dates) and run through them in order before finalizing a document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I undo a Replace All if I already saved the document?
If you saved after the replacement, undo will not work. You would need to reopen the previous version of the file if you saved backups, or manually fix the replacements. This is why it is safer to use the one-at-a-time Replace button when you are uncertain about a change.
How do I find text that appears only on certain pages?
Find and Replace does not have a built-in page filter. Instead, navigate to the page you want to search, click in that section, then open Find and Replace. Word will search from your cursor position forward, so you can control where the search starts.
Can I search for text with different spacing or line breaks?
Yes, if you turn on Use wildcards. Use ^p to represent a paragraph break and ^t for a tab. For example, searching for word^pword will find two instances of "word" separated by a paragraph break.
What if the text I want to find has special formatting like bold or italics?
Find and Replace cannot search by formatting directly in the basic view. You would need to find the plain text first, then manually explore formatting to the results, or use a macro if you are comfortable with Word's scripting language.
Does Find and Replace work the same way in Word Online?
Word Online has a simpler Find tool (Ctrl+F) but does not include the full Find and Replace dialog. For full Find and Replace features, you need the desktop version of Word installed on your computer.