Open Find and Replace with Ctrl+H

The fastest way to find and replace text in Word is to press Ctrl+H on your keyboard. This opens the Find and Replace dialog box — a single window where you can type what you're looking for and what you want to change it to.

If you prefer using the menu instead, go to the Home tab at the top of Word, look for the Editing group on the right side of the ribbon, and click Replace. Both methods open the same dialog.

Key Takeaways

  • Press Ctrl+H to open Find and Replace, then type the text you want to find in the first box and the replacement text in the second box.
  • Click Replace All to change every instance at once, or Replace to change them one at a time and review each change.
  • Use Match Case if you need to find only uppercase or lowercase versions, and Find Whole Words Only to avoid changing parts of longer words.
  • The More Options button reveals advanced features like searching for specific formatting or paragraph marks.

Type What You're Looking For and What to Replace It With

Once the Find and Replace dialog is open, you'll see two text boxes. The top one is labeled Find What: — type the text you want to search for here. The second box is labeled Replace With: — type what you want to change it to.

For example, if you want to change every instance of "email" to "e-mail", you would type "email" in the Find box and "e-mail" in the Replace box. Word will search through your entire document for that text.

Replace One at a Time or All at Once

After you've entered your search and replacement text, you have two choices. Click Replace All to change every single instance in your document at once. Word will tell you how many replacements it made when it's finished.

If you want to review each change before it happens, click Replace (not Replace All). Word will highlight the first match, and you can click Replace to change just that one, or Find Next to skip it and move to the next match. This method takes longer but gives you control over which instances actually get changed.

Use Match Case to Find Exact Capitalization

By default, Word ignores whether letters are uppercase or lowercase. If you search for "john", it will find "john", "John", and "JOHN" all the same way. If you only want to find text with specific capitalization, check the Match Case box before you search.

This is useful when you're working with proper nouns or technical terms where capitalization matters. For instance, you might want to change "iPhone" to "iPhone 15" but leave "iphone" (if it appears in lowercase) alone.

Find Whole Words Only to Avoid Partial Matches

Word's default search finds text anywhere it appears, even as part of a larger word. If you search for "cat", it will find "cat", "catalog", "category", and "concatenate". To search for only the exact word "cat" by itself, check the Find Whole Words Only box.

This prevents accidental changes. For example, if you want to replace "read" with "review", checking this box ensures you don't accidentally change "thread" to "threview" or "already" to "alreview".

Use More Options for Advanced Searches

Click the More Options button (or Less Options if it's already expanded) to reveal additional search features. One of the most useful is the ability to search for formatting — you can find text that's bold, italic, underlined, or in a specific font, and replace it with different formatting.

You can also search for special characters like paragraph marks, line breaks, or tabs by clicking Special and selecting what you need. For instance, you might want to find every paragraph mark followed by a space and replace it with just a paragraph mark to clean up extra spacing in your document.

Close the Dialog When You're Done

After you've finished making replacements, click the X button in the top right corner of the Find and Replace dialog to close it. Your document will remain open with all the changes you made.

If you made a mistake and want to undo all the replacements, press Ctrl+Z immediately. Word will reverse the last action. If you've made other edits since then, you may need to press Ctrl+Z multiple times to get back to before the replacements happened.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I search for line breaks or paragraph marks?

Yes. Click More Options, then Special, and choose what you're looking for. Paragraph marks are represented as ^p, line breaks as ^l, and tabs as ^t. You can type these codes directly into the Find box if you know them.

What if Replace All changed something I didn't want?

Press Ctrl+Z immediately to undo the entire Replace All action. If you've made other changes since then, you'll need to undo multiple times. In the future, use Replace instead of Replace All to review each change first.

Can I search for text with specific formatting like bold or italics?

Yes. Click More Options, then in the Find box, type your text and click Format to specify bold, italic, font, size, or color. You can do the same in the Replace box to apply formatting to the replacement text.

Does Find and Replace work in headers and footers?

No, Find and Replace only searches the main body of your document. To change text in headers or footers, you need to open them separately by double-clicking at the top or bottom of the page, then use Find and Replace within that section.

Can I search for text across multiple documents at once?

Not with the standard Find and Replace dialog. You would need to open each document and run Find and Replace separately, or use Word's Find in Files feature (available in some versions) to search across multiple files at once.