From Formatting to Replacing Text: How to Get the Most Out of Word's Find & Replace

Do you need to update a certain word or phrase that appears multiple times throughout your Word document? If so, you have likely used the Find & Replace Text feature in MS Word to do this quickly and easily. But did you also know that you can use a few common keyboard shortcuts when you are in the Find & Replace window that allow you to change the font formatting of that word or phrase that exists in multiple places throughout the document as well? In this post, we look at how to use Find & Replace in MS Word plus how to change text formatting with Find & Replace.

This video shows how you can use formatting shortcuts on the Replace tab so you can save lots of time and effort in making updates in your document.

How to update words, phrases, and formatting that appear multiple times throughout your document quickly & easily using Find & Replace in #MSWord.

Let’s take this document as an example. It is a draft of an Employee Handbook template and the document contains a text placeholder for “Company Name.” This “Company Name” appears over 40 times throughout the document and we want to replace that with our actual company name.

Here is how to use the Find & Replace feature in MS Word to accomplish our desired task.

1. Select the first instance of Company Name and copy it (either hit Ctrl + C or right-click > Copy)

2. On the Home Tab, select Replace from the Editing area (or Find > Advanced Find > Replace Tab)

3. Copy (either hit Ctrl + V or right-click > Paste) Company Name in the Find what field and type Sharon Smith HR in the Replace with field

4. Click Replace All and click OK through prompts to search the entire document, as desired

Because Company Name had bold formatting, when we replaced all instances with Sharon Smith HR, we retained that bold formatting throughout the document. Let’s say we don’t want it to be bold, but rather italics instead. Here is how to quickly and easily update the text formatting of the new “Sharon Smith HR” company name throughout the document.

1. Select the first instance of Sharon Smith HR and copy it (either hit Ctrl + C or right-click > Copy)

2. On the Home Tab, select Replace from the Editing area (or Find > Advanced Find > Replace Tab)

3. Copy (either hit Ctrl + V or right-click > Paste) Sharon Smith HR in the Find what field and type Sharon Smith HR in the Replace with field

4. While the cursor is in the Replace with field, hit Ctrl + B. Notice that a Format footnote appears below the field to indicate Bold formatting.

5. Hit Ctrl + B again and notice that the footnote now indicates Not Bold, which is what we want. Now hit Ctrl + I so that it will also indicate Italic

6. Once you are done with desired formatting, you can click Replace All as desired to update throughout your document. (HINT: keyboard shortcuts for Underline = Ctrl + U; Bold = Ctrl + B; Italics = Ctrl + I)

If you found this helpful, be sure to watch, like, comment on, and share the video from YouTube. You can find other helpful posts on my blog, including this one: https://sharonsmithhr.com/create-fillable-forms-online-with-jotform/.

If you happen to use Office for Mac, you can find information on how to use this feature here on the Microsoft Support site: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/find-and-replace-text-c6728c16-469e-43cd-afe4-7708c6c779b7#ID0EBBD=macOS

Good luck updating words and phrases in your documents with Find & Replace in #MSWord!