Tip of the Week: Use the Find and Replace Features in Docs and Word

One of the handiest keyboard shortcuts of all time is probably Ctrl + F, or Find, which helps you locate specific text on a page. That said, you can also do some neat things besides finding specific text. You can also replace text, even to the case and special characters. Let’s get into how you can do so in Google Docs and Word.

First, the Keyboard Shortcut

To open the Find window, first use the Ctrl + F keyboard shortcut. You should see a text field open where you plug in your search query. This will give you all results found within your document for the chosen word or phrase. You can also jump between instances of the word or phrase by using the arrow buttons.

This experience is pretty universal for both Docs and Word, but the replace feature works a little differently.

Next, the Replace Feature

To access the Replace feature in Google Docs, use the Ctrl + F shortcut, then click on the three-dot menu in the search box that appears.

From here, you’ll see options to enter your search terms in the Find column, but you can Replace these instances with the words of your choice. You can either do a blanket replacement or you can replace a single instance. You can set whether you’d like the function to be case-sensitive or even to look for special characters.

To access this feature in Microsoft Word, use the Ctrl + G shortcut, which is explicitly for the Replace function.

Many of the options should resemble those in Google Docs, including the Find box and the Replace With box. If you click on the More >> option, you’ll see several checkboxes for specific situations, like capital letters, prefixes, suffixes, whole words, and even white space. It’s a bit more dynamic than Google Docs in this regard, so we’re sure you’ll get some good use out of this tip.

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