FIND AND REPLACE TEXT - MS Word 2010 Tutorial

In long documents, locating a particular piece of text can become quite a task. MS Word 2010 provides tools to find and replace text in your document with ease. You will learn how to find and replace text in this lesson.

Task-1: Finding Text

Go to the About Tutorials page and download the practice document “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. In this document, find all instances of the word “Alice” using the Find feature of MS Word.

Step-by-Step Instructions

Open the practice document “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” for this lesson.

Method-1: Using Navigation Pane

1. Click ‘Home’ tab.
2. Click the ‘Find’ button in the ‘Editing’ group. The navigation pane will appear on the left with ‘Browse Search Results’ pane open.
3. Type “Alice” in the ‘Search Document’ box and click the Search button. MS Word will show search results in the ‘Browse Results’ pane. You will find 21 matches (see Figure 1).
4. Point to any match result. The number of the page on which the matched word appears is displayed. Also, all instances of ‘Alice’ are highlighted in the document.

Figure 1: Navigation Pane

TIP!
In MS Word, the keyboard shortcut for launching the navigation pane is Ctrl+F.

Method-2: Using Find & Replace Dialog

Figure 2: Find Drop-down Menu

1. Click ‘Home’ tab.
2. Click the small inverted triangle by the side of ‘Find’ button in the ‘Editing’ group. A drop down menu will open (see Figure 2).
3. Click ‘Advanced Find…’ on the menu. The ‘Find & Replace’ dialog is launched with the ‘Find’ tab open (see Figure 3).
4. Type “Alice” in the ‘Find what’ box.
5. Click ‘Find next’ button. The first instance of the word after the cursor is selected. By successively clicking the ‘Find Next’ button you can see all occurrences of the word.
6. To highlight all occurrences of the word in the document, click the ‘Reading Highlight’ button. MS Word highlights the word throughout the document.

Figure 3: Find & Replace Dialog Box

Task-2: Replacing Text

Replace the word “rabbit” with “bunny” throughout the document.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Click ‘Home’ tab, then click ‘Replace’ button in the ‘Editing’ group. The ‘Find & Replace’ dialog will start with ‘Replace’ tab selected.
2. Type “rabbit” in the ‘Find what’ box.
3. Type “bunny” in the ‘Replace with’ box.
4. To check each match before replacing, click ‘Find Next’ button and wherever you want to make the replacement, click ‘Replace’ button. Repeat the step for each match.
5. To replace all occurrences of the searched word with text entered in the ‘Replace with’ box, just click ‘Replace All’ button. MS Word replaces “rabbit” with “bunny” everywhere in the document.

TIP!
The MS Word keyboard shortcut for launching the ‘Find & Replace’ dialog box in Replace mode is Ctrl-H.

Recap

• To find text, open the Navigation Pane in MS Word programme window by clicking Home tab > Find or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F and enter the text to be searched.
• To find and replace text, launch the ‘Find & Replace’ dialog box either by clicking Home Tab > Find Dropdown menu > Advanced Find or Home Tab > Replace and enter the text to be searched in ‘Find’ tab and the replacement text in ‘replace’ tab.

We appreciate you reading this guide in its entirety. Visit us again for news and useful advice in the future. It will be worthwhile for you to visit. I truly value your coming by and being here. If you find these instructions and advice useful and instructive, kindly tell your friends about our website. On the other hand, if you believe that there is any area that could use better, kindly share your suggestions. These will be much embraced and valued. Use the comment section below to provide suggestions or ask questions. Your questions will be swiftly investigated and properly addressed, and your comments will be promptly examined and published. Thanks.