Microsoft – Use Find/Replace to Format Documents in Word 2010

One of the little secrets of Word 2010 is the Format option that comes with the Find/Replace feature; with it, you can format certain parts of your document automatically, quickly and easily.

To see how, bring up a document or create a dummy document that you can use for testing formatting options. Here’s the one we will be using for demonstration purposes:

The first thing of course is to find the format options; to do that, first click on the Replace icon on the main ribbon:

Then click the More>> button:

And then finally, click the Format button at the very bottom of the screen:

This is where all of Words Find and Replace format options lie. To see how to use them, close down the Find and Replace screen, then type something into your document, such as the word RED, like this:

Then, click the Replace icon on the main ribbon again, only this time, type the word RED in both the find and replace with: boxes, like this:

Then, click the Format button, and choose Font… from the dropdown menu. Pick one of the red colors from the menu.

That should take you back to the main Find and Replace screen; notice how the change is shown underneath the Replace with: box:

Next, click the Replace All button;

Click Ok to acknowledge the popup that appears to tell you how many instances Word has changed.

You should now see this in your document:

That in essence is the basis of making changes to your document using Find and Replace.

Another way you might use this feature is if you have a certain word or phrase you wish to highlight whenever it appears in your document, to do that, click Replace, type in the word you wish to highlight in the Find what: box, type it in again in the Replace with: box, then click Format, then choose Highlight, then Replace All, you should get something like this:

Here we’ve highlighted every instance of the word “dummy.”

You can of course, also use Find and Replace to change the style of a word or phrase (to create subdivisions in your document for example), add tabs, make changes to paragraphs or add frames or language changes, all using this same technique.

There’s one more thing you can do, and that is to use the Special button either alone or in conjunction with the Format options. The Special button adds Word special characters to a Replace with: option. For example, if you would like to replace the space between a duo word combination with an Em dash, first type in the two word combo in the Find what: box, then type in just the first word in the Replace with: box, then click the Special button and choose Em Dash and then add the second word after the special character has been inserted. Your Find and Replace screen give you this:

Clicking Replace All will replace all instances of the space between your chosen words with an Em Dash. In this case, it replaced the space between the word “dummy” and “document” with an Em Dash for every instance it found.

Using either or both of these options when you have multiple instances of text you’d like to format in a document in a certain way can make the work go very quickly and easily.

Note: To get Find and Replace to stop adding the formatting changes to your documents, click the No Formatting button at the bottom of the popup window.

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