Open Find and Replace with a keyboard shortcut
The fastest way to open Find and Replace in Word is to press Ctrl+H on Windows or Command+Option+F on Mac. A dialog box will appear with two fields: one for the text you want to find, and one for what you want to replace it with.
If you only need to find text without replacing it, use Ctrl+F (Windows) or Command+F (Mac) instead. This opens a simpler search pane on the side of your document.
You can also reach Find and Replace through the menu: click the Home tab, then look for Find & Replace in the Editing group on the right side of the ribbon.
Key Takeaways
- Press Ctrl+H (Windows) or Command+Option+F (Mac) to open the Find and Replace dialog instantly.
- Type the text you want to find in the first field and the replacement text in the second field, then click Replace All to change every instance at once.
- Use the More Options button to search for specific formatting, whole words only, or text that matches a pattern.
- Click Replace to change one instance at a time, or Replace All to change every match in the document without reviewing each one.
Type what you want to find and what to replace it with
In the Find what: field, type the exact text you want to locate. In the Replace with: field, type what should appear in its place. If you want to delete text entirely, leave the Replace with field empty and click Replace All.
Word is case-sensitive by default, so searching for "John" will not find "john". If you want to find text regardless of capitalization, click More Options and uncheck the Match case box.
For example, if you typed "recieve" throughout a document and want to fix it to "receive", type "recieve" in Find what and "receive" in Replace with. Then click Replace All to fix every instance at once.
Replace one at a time or all at once
After you type your search and replacement text, you have two choices. Click Replace to change only the first match, review it, and then decide whether to replace the next one. Click Find Next to skip to the next match without replacing the current one.
Click Replace All to change every match in the document without stopping to review each one. Word will tell you how many replacements it made. Use Replace All when you are confident the replacement is correct throughout the document, such as fixing a misspelled name or updating a product title.
If you make a mistake, press Ctrl+Z immediately to undo all the replacements at once.
Search for formatting or special characters
Click More Options to expand the dialog and see additional search choices. You can search for text that has specific formatting applied to it — for example, find all bold text and replace it with regular text, or find red text and change it to blue.
To search for special characters like paragraph marks, tabs, or line breaks, click Special at the bottom of the expanded dialog. Select the character type you want to find. For instance, you can replace every paragraph mark (^p) with a line break (^l) to reformat how your text breaks across lines.
These options are useful when you have imported text from another source and need to clean up formatting or spacing that did not come through correctly.
Use wildcards to find patterns instead of exact text
If you want to find text that matches a pattern rather than exact words, enable Use wildcards in the More Options section. Wildcards let you search for things like "any number" or "any letter" without typing out every possibility.
For example, the wildcard . (a period) matches any single character. The wildcard * matches any number of characters. So searching for "cat.*" would find "cat", "cats", "catalog", and "category" all at once. This is powerful when you need to find variations of a word or a pattern that appears many times in different forms.
Wildcards work best when you already understand the pattern you are looking for. If you are unsure whether wildcards will help, try a simple Find and Replace first.
Find and replace in a specific part of your document
By default, Find and Replace searches your entire document. If you want to limit the search to a specific section, select that text first before opening Find and Replace. Word will then search only within your selection.
You can also use the Find All button to see every match highlighted in your document at once. This is helpful when you want to review all instances before replacing any of them, or when you want to see how many times a word appears.
Close Find and Replace when you are done
After you finish replacing text, close the Find and Replace dialog by clicking the X button in the top right corner or pressing Escape. Your replacements remain in the document and can be undone with Ctrl+Z if needed.
If you use Find and Replace often, you may want to keep the Find pane open while you work. The Find pane (opened with Ctrl+F) stays visible on the side of your screen and does not block your view of the document the way the Find and Replace dialog does.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I undo a Replace All if I made a mistake?
Yes. Press Ctrl+Z immediately after Replace All to undo all the replacements at once. If you have made other changes since then, you can still undo by pressing Ctrl+Z multiple times, though you will undo those other changes too. For this reason, it is safer to use Replace (one at a time) if you are unsure about a replacement.
How do I find text that appears only at the beginning or end of a line?
Enable Use wildcards in More Options, then use ^ to mark the beginning of a line and $ to mark the end. For example, searching for "^The" finds "The" only when it appears at the start of a line, not in the middle of a sentence.
What is the difference between Find, Find Next, and Replace?
Find locates the first match. Find Next moves to the next match without replacing anything. Replace changes the current match and moves to the next one. Use Find Next to browse through matches, and Replace to change them one by one.
Can I search across multiple documents at once?
The standard Find and Replace dialog searches only the current document. To search multiple documents, you would need to open Find and Replace in each document separately, or use Word's advanced search features through File menu options, though these vary by Word version.