In Microsoft Word you can use Find combined with your own actions and easily switch between the Find and editing. That’s great for situations where a simple Replace command isn’t enough.
Find results show up in the left-hand pane or dialog box, you can move between find results and editing, change the text in or around each result before moving onto the next result.
Let’s say you’re changing a document to refer to a different person – he is now a she. A simple name replace isn’t enough, you need to check the sentence/paragraph for other inconsistencies like His/Her he/she etc.
In this example we’ll change the character Falstaff to a woman (Shakespeare purists’ shudder) by searching for the character name then changing the text around it.
Click on the document to edit, as usual, then return to the Navigation pane and move to another result using the up/down arrows or click on another find result in the pane.
If you prefer, or it’s an earlier version of Word, use the Advanced Find dialog. You can switch between the open Find dialog and the document.
This is a little clumsier for navigation and you can’t switch to another open document without closing the dialog.
More Word Find / Search tricks
Word: Finding and Fix Highlighted text
Two ways to Find & Remove Hidden Text in Word
Two ways to find accented letters in Word
Word’s Find can’t find all Unicode symbols and emoji
