How to Find and Replace Words in Microsoft Word Documents

Often when working in Microsoft Word we only need to change one or two words in the file to make it relevant to another client or project. For Example, updating a client’s name in a 30-page contract or updating the address of a company or speakers name in a briefing document.

Because scrolling through your document changing each word individually would be a tedious and time-consuming task Microsoft has built-in a hand tool called ‘Find and Replace’.

Find and Replace allows you to replace one word with another, across the entirety of your Microsoft Word Document at the click of a button.

There is no limit to how many times you can use this tool, but it does need to be done word by word, we can’t yet find and replace multiple words at once. But still, it’s a huge time saver and will guarantee you don’t miss a word that needs replacing.

In this post we will show you how to use the Find and Replace tool in Microsoft Word and leave you updating your document in seconds.

Using Microsoft Word’s Find and Replace

1. Open Word
2. Find and click Edit in the Home bar

3. Under Edit click Find

4. In the Find tab press Replace….

5. This will open a navigation box on the left-hand side of your Word Document
6. Type the word you wish to replace in the Find box

7. Type the word you wish to replace this word with, in the second text box

8. Choose Replace. To replace all instances at the same time, select Replace All.

9. Press OK.

You have no successfully used Words Find and Replace feature to update your Microsoft Word Document.

Advanced Word Replacement

If your word search shows multiple options, as shown below.

You can scroll through the highlighted words until you find the word you would like to replace. This will narrow down the word search and ensure you only replace the exact word you are looking for.

Looking for an easier solution to your collaboration frustrations?

When collaborating in Microsoft Word, your email inbox can quickly become filled with updated versions of a document being sent back and forward between colleagues.

John made an edit, sent an email ‘see updated attached’.

Then Lucy made an edit, sent an email 30minutes later ‘updated version attached’, and it goes on for days.

Sending updated versions via email is one way to know a new version is available and required your attention. But it can also clutter your inbox with internal emails, with a single line or sometimes nobody of text in the email.

The alternative is to send them via a group chat channel such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, but you should make a new channel for the document updates so that you don’t miss one, or lose it in an open channel as other conversations start happening around the document being sent.

With overflowing inboxes and your slack channel constantly telling you there are un-read messages there needs to be a solution for collaborating alone. Somewhere your updated versions can live in peace, with no other noise around them to allow you to easily review and check them at any time.

The solution is here and it comes in the form of a great new purpose-built tool called Simul Docs.

Simul was built just for Microsoft Word and for you, to help you collaborate with ease.

First and foremost, Simul will store and manage every version of your document in an easy to navigate toolbar that you can access from anywhere you have an internet connection (or offline if you do a quick download before losing your connection).

As a new version of your document is created, Simul will automatically save the file under a numerical version number that makes sense. The first version is named 0.0.1, the second 0.0.2, the third 0.0.3 and so on. Making it easy for you to keep track of how many versions have been made and which one is the most recent.

But what about any extra notes or comments the author wanted to make, ones they would usually put in the email such as ‘Tim, this is my final round of edits before we send onto client’? No worries, Simul allows you to add comments and notes to any version as well, so your team can see what is going on at all times.

Speaking of comments and notes, Simul will also track every comment, change or edit made to a version for you, without you having to remember to turn tracked changes on. That’s pretty cool, right?

So a tool that manages your version control, saves your files and stores them and tracks all of your edits and changes without you thinking about any of it, it sounds too good to be true or as though it would be difficult to use or implement. Well, don’t worry it’s not, it’s here and it is called Simul Docs and it’s so easy to use, after walking through the in-app tutorial we had it down within 3 minutes.

It’s a bit like an apple product, it just makes sense. It’s clean and simple, nothing too complicated, but with everything you need all in the one spot.

If you’re not convinced already, head over to Simul now and give their free trial a go.

Collaboration just got a whole lot easier with Simul Docs.