The “Replace” option is available on Microsoft 365 (Office 365), Office 2019, Office 2016, and older versions, and in all versions, the feature includes advanced options to narrow down the text that you’re trying to correct. In this guide, you’ll learn the steps to find and replace a word or phrase in a Microsoft Word document.
How to find and replace text in Word How to find and replace text using advanced options in Word
How to find and replace text in Word
To find and replace text in Microsoft Word, use these steps: Once you complete the steps, the text will be edited with the content you specified. Find and replace text in Word Replace text in Word If you’re using the Replace All button, remember that this option will replace all instances of the text, and many times, it could cause problems. For example, if the word you’re trying to replace is part of another word, such as “auto” and “automatically,” it’ll also get replaced. As a result, using the Find Next and Replace buttons are the best way to replace text in Microsoft Word. However, in this particular case, you can use the advanced search option, and selecting the Find whole words only will prevent replacing the wrong word.
How to find and replace text using advanced options in Word
To perform an advanced search and replace in Word, use these steps: These are the most common search options, but Microsoft Word also includes a few other options, including “Sounds like (English),” “Find all word forms (English),” “Match prefix,” “Match suffix,” “Ignore punctuation characters,” and “Ignore white-space characters.” Microsoft Word Replace option Replace search options button
Search — specifies where to search. Options include, All (recommended), Up or Down. Match case — specifies a search that treats cases, such as Car and car as different words. Find whole words only — finds the whole word, so you don’t replace “automatically” when you’re looking for “auto” only. Use wildcards — allows to find and replace parts of text with (*) wildcard. For instance, you can remove all “s” from words using the “*s” query.
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