How to Replace Text in Word 2007

It's not uncommon for a writer to need to replace text within a document.

Word 2007 enables you to replace individually selected text, or you can replace text every time it occurs within the document. For specific text, you may choose to retype over the existing text to manually replace it. You may even go through the entire document to manually find and change the text each time it occurs. Using the "Find and Replace" feature built into Word 2007 is a faster and more reliable method.

Instructions

1. Click the "Home" tab at the top left of the Word 2007 document if it is not selected already. Five sections under the "Home" tab will be visible with labels at the bottom of each section. The sections visible are: "Clipboard," "Font," "Paragraph," "Styles" and "Editing."

2. Click "Replace" in the middle of the "Editing" section. A small screen will pop up automatically opened to the "Replace" tab, which has two labels with boxes to the right of them titled "Find what:" and "Replace with:".

3. Type the current text in the document you want replaced in the box to the right of "Find what:". Type the new text you want to replace the current word with in the box to the right of "Replace with:".

4. After entering your current and new texts, and before clicking "Replace" or "Replace All," click the "More" button on the bottom left of the "Replace" screen to expand the screen, providing more replacement options. Click the blank box next to the replacement rules you want to apply.

5. Click "Replace" at the bottom of the screen to replace the next instance within the document the current text appears. Click "Replace All" to replace every single occurrence of the current word. If you only want one occurrence of the current word to be replaced, click "Find Next" to find the current word within the document you wish to replace before clicking "Replace."

Tips & Warnings

• Click Ctrl+H to open the "Find and Replace" screen with the "Replace" tab selected.

• Click Ctrl+F to open the "Find and Replace" screen with to the "Find" tab selected.

• If you replace a common group of sequential letters without setting replacement rules, it can result in errors. For example, if you replace the word "it" with "sit" and click "Replace All", anywhere the letters "i" and "t" appear within a word, it will replace them with "s", "i" and "t". The word "itch" will become "sitch". Clicking the box next to "Find whole words only" will resolve this issue.

References

• Office Support: Word 2007: Find and Replace Text