Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
What do you do when you need to find text or specific formatting in a long document? Like most, you probably scan the document in search of what you’re looking for. But this is an inefficient way to work. That’s where Word’s Advanced Find and Replace tool comes in. It provides advanced search options, allowing you to refine your search. And this in turn speeds up the process!
What is Word’s Advanced Find and Replace tool used for?
There are three core functions of the Advanced Find and Replace tool in Word. You can use the tool to:
- Find text, content or special formatting such as paragraph marks, section breaks or graphics;
- Find and Replace text, content or special formatting; or
- Go To a specific point in your document.
Each of these functions make it easier and quicker to find and navigate to what you’re looking for. That’s because they allow you to refine your search. In doing so, you end up with fewer results to review.
How to open the Advanced Find and Replace dialogue box
There are several ways to access the Advanced Find and Replace dialogue box in Word.
Following are the various options for direct access to the individual tabs of the Advanced Find and Replace dialogue box.
With a keyboard shortcut
- Find tab – no shortcut for this. So use one of the following keyboard shortcuts instead. Then navigate to the Find tab by pressing Alt+D, Ctrl + Page Up or Ctrl + Page Down. Or click the Find tab using your mouse;
- Replace tab – press Ctrl+H;
- Go To tab – press Ctrl+G or F5.
Via the ribbon (Home > Editing)
- Find tab – select Advanced Find from the Find dropdown menu;
- Replace tab – click the Replace button;
- Go To tab – select Go To from the Find dropdown menu.
Via the Navigation pane
- Open the Navigation pane. Then click the dropdown arrow beside the Search document box and select the relevant function.
An in-depth look at all the options
Let’s now look at each of the three key functions of the Advanced Find and Replace tool in more detail.
Note: be sure to click the More button (on the Find or Replace tabs) when you first open the dialogue box. That way, you’ll have access to all the advanced search options outlined below.
1. Find
The first tab of the Advanced Find and Replace dialogue box is Find. It’s used to find text, content or other special formatting in a document.
Start by adding the search term in the Find what box. Or ensuring the box is empty where you want to search for specific formatting only (see below). Then use the following options to narrow your search.
Search Options section
Use the Search dropdown menu to set which part of your document the search should cover. You can choose to search from the cursor position to the top of your document. Or down to the bottom of your document. The default – which you’ll most likely prefer and/or use – is to search the entire document.
You then have several options which cover word forms, punctuation and the like. For example, searching for whole words only. Or searching for words that match the case of the text you’ve entered in the Find what box.
If you’d like more info regarding each of the options available, see the Search options section of this Microsoft webpage.
Find section
Click the Format button for a list of formatting options you can use to refine your search further. This allows you to search for text that’s formatted in a specific way. For example, you can ask Word to search for text that uses the Heading 1 style. Or you might search for text that has bold font applied.
Likewise, click the Special button to search for special formatting in your document. This includes things like paragraph marks, tab characters, manual page breaks and section breaks.
Other tools
The Find tab includes the following additional tools:
- Reading Highlight – select this option if you’d like Word to highlight all results found in your document;
- Find In – specify if you’d like to limit the search to the main document, or to headers and footers;
- No Formatting – use this to clear search criteria you may have set in refining your search.
2. Replace
The Replace tab is an extension of the Find tab.
It includes the Find what box, as well as the Replace with box. Again, enter the relevant terms in these boxes. Or ensure they’re empty if you want to search and replace specific formatting only.
Search Options section
The Replace tab includes the same Search Options as those found on the Find tab – relating to word forms, punctuation and the like. It also provides the ability to search from the cursor upwards or downwards, or the entire document (Word’s default search behaviour).
Replace section
The Replace section on the Replace tab is identical to the Find section on the Find tab (apart from the name). That is, it includes the same buttons: Format, Special and No Formatting.
As mentioned, the Format and Special buttons enable you to refine your search for the search term you enter in the Find what box. You can also set specific formatting options for the text you enter in the Replace with box. For example, if you select bold font in the Replace with box, Word will apply this formatting when the search term is replaced.
Similarly, the items in the Special button dropdown menu allow you to replace what you entered in the Find what box with special formatting. So, for example, you could replace hyphens with nonbreaking hyphens.
Other tools
Following are the extra tools that the Replace tab offers:
- Find Next and Replace – use these buttons to have greater control when replacing text, content or special formatting;
- Replace All – use this button when you want to replace all search results;
- No Formatting – use this to clear search criteria you may have set in refining your search in either the Find what and/or Replace with boxes.
3. Go To
The Go To function lets you jump to a specific place in your document.
There are various options you can select from. They include jumping to a page or a section.
You can also use the Go To function to jump to graphics or tables. But I recommend using the Navigation pane for this, especially for graphics. That’s because the Results tab of the Navigation pane gives a preview of all the graphics in your document. So you can easily see and select the one you need, rather than jumping to each of them.
