Word Advanced Find – all the special codes
Word’s Advanced Find has many special codes to help locate or replace hidden or unusual things in a Word document. Here’s a complete and searchable list of all the ^ codes and what they are for
Under Find | Advanced Find | More | Special there’s a list of special codes for finding hidden formatting markers. They are all prefixed with ^ e.g. Paragraph mark is ^p Tab is ^t
They’re all listed under the Special button but some (the Wildcard codes) only work for ‘Find what’.
Here’s a complete list of all the special ^ codes used in Word Find and Replace.
We’ve broken them up into categories.
Word special codes – find the hidden marks Word puts in a document for formatting, such as the end of a paragraph or line.
Wildcard – find one or more letters, numbers or symbols when ‘Use Wildcards’ is OFF. You read that right, the ‘Use Wildcards’ option in Advanced Find really means ‘Use Regular Expressions’. These codes only work in ‘Find what’, not Replace.
Text symbols – an easy way to find some special symbols instead of hunting down the actual character. For example use ^+ in find instead of an Em-dash “—”. Two of these symbols only work in the “Replace with …” field.
Use the Search box (right) or sort the columns to find the code / character you want.
Name Find code Appears in Show All as … Type Comments
Paragraph Mark ^p ⁋ Word special codes Word’s way of ending a paragraph.
Tab Mark ^t → Word special codes
Any Character ^? Wildcard Any single character, such as a number, letter or symbol.
Any Digit ^# Wildcard Any single number only in the document.
Any Letter ^$ Wildcard Any single letter only in the document.
Caret Character ^^ Text symbols Find the caret (^) symbol, single ^ symbol is used as a prefix for special finds.
Column Break ^n Word special codes Creates a hard break in the inserted location, like a page break or section break, and compels the rest of the content to appear in the next column
Em Dash ^+ Text symbols In a sentence, the Em Dash could be used instead of parentheses, commas, colons, or quotation marks.
En Dash ^= Text symbols A medium-sized dash used to show number and date ranges
Endnote Mark ^e Word special codes Find an Endnote mark that links to a later Endnote.
Field ^d Word special codes Find a Word field. ‘View Fields Codes’ must be on.
Footnote Mark ^f Word special codes The footnote reference mark in the document corresponding a later footnote.
Graphic ^g Word special codes Any image or graphic within the document.
Manual Line Break ^l ↵ Word special codes Manual Line break is when the text on the current line is ended, and the text on the next line is continued. Made by typing Shift + Enter
Manual Page Break ^m Word special codes A manual page break can be used to force a new page in your document. Made by typing Ctrl + Enter
Nonbreaking Hyphen ^~ Word special codes Nonbreaking hyphens prevent phrases, hyphenated words, or numbers from breaking towards the end of a line of text.
Nonbreaking Space ^s Word special codes When a line is broken, nonbreaking spaces prevent words or individual characters from separating.
Optional Hyphen ^- Word special codes Controls the hyphenation of words at specific points in the text.
Section Break ^b Word special codes Used to break up a document into sections.
White Space ^w Wildcard Any blank space (normal or non-breaking) and including tabs
Section Character ^% § Text symbols Insert the § symbol.
Used in ‘Replace with’ only.
Paragraph Character ^v ⁋ Text symbols Insert the ⁋ symbol.
Used in ‘Replace with’ only. It is sometimes referred to as the pilcrow, paragraph sign, paraph, or blind P.
Found! Word shortcut to the Advanced Find dialog
Wildcard Find tricks in Microsoft Word