In addition to searching and replacing text, Word allows you to search for special characters (tabs, indents, paragraph marks, etc.) and then replace them with other special characters. This can be useful for quick and easy changes that would normally take you a little more time to do manually.
When is it useful to find and replace special characters?
To understand when searching and replacing special characters can be useful, let's look at some examples.
1.- Let's say there is a long legal document that you need to edit. You have been asked to replace the word "section" with the section symbol. The section symbol is a pair of overlapping "S" characters and is often used in legal documents to refer to a section numbered in a document.
Your document has more than 50 pages, and there are numerous references to various sections everywhere. You can easily replace the word "section" with the section symbol by searching and replacing.
2.- You have just finished writing a draft of your first novel, and it includes a variety of scripted words. You must hold the words together with hyphens replacing the normal hyphen with a hyphen without interruption.
You start replacing the symbol manually but you stop after a few attempts. You know there has to be an easier way. There is! Simply use "Search and replace" to do the work for you.
3.- A colleague resigned and you were assigned the task of editing a report in which the colleague worked before leaving. The report is well written, but the space between paragraphs is inconsistent. After clicking Show / Hide, you discover that in some cases, there are two paragraph marks instead of one.
One way to correct the space between paragraphs would be to press the Delete key each time you see an additional paragraph mark. But there is a faster way: simply look for each occurrence of two paragraph marks and replace it with a paragraph mark.
There are too many special characters to detail them all, but let's take a look at some general examples of how the search and replacement of those characters works.
First example: replace text with special characters
Let's say your document looks like this:
If you don't see the special characters in your document, you can activate them by clicking the Show / Hide button on the ribbon. Your icon looks like the paragraph symbol.
You must replace each occurrence of the word "Section" with a section symbol. Switch to the "Start" tab on the Word ribbon and then click on "Replace." Alternatively, you can press Ctrl + H.
Type the word "Section" in the "Search" box and then click the "More >>" button to expand the Search and replace options.
Click on the "Replace with" box to place your insertion point there and then click on the "Special" button.
Click on "Section Character" in the drop-down list.
Note that the "Replace with" box now contains the text "^%": this is the Word code for that section symbol. Click on the "Replace All" button. Now, click on the "Accept" button and then close the Search and Replace window.
All occurrences of the word "Section" have now been replaced with the section character.
Second example: Replace a regular script with a script without interruption
For the following example, notice that there are quite a few scripted words in our sample paragraph, including three occurrences where scripted words are separated into different lines. Let's replace all regular scripts with dashes without interruption so that does not happen.
On the "Start" tab, click on "Replace" or simply press the CTRL + H keys.
In the "Search" box, delete any existing text or characters and then write a single script. Click the "More >>" button if necessary to expand the Search and replace options.
Click on the "Replace with" box to place your insertion point there. Remove any existing text or characters and then click on the "Special" button.
Click on "Script without interruption" from the drop-down list.
Note that the Word code for the script without interruption – "^ ~" – has now been added to the "Replace with" box. Click on the "Replace All" button. Now, click on the "Accept" button and then close the Search and Replace window.
Word has replaced all scripts with dashes without interruption. Notice that the words with hyphens in the right margin are no longer separated.
Third example: Replace two paragraph marks with one
In this example, we want to replace any double paragraph mark with a single mark, eliminating the extra space between paragraphs.
On the "Start" tab, click on the "Replace" button. Alternatively, you can press the CTRL + H keys.
Click on the "Search" box and then delete any existing text or characters. Click on the "More >>" button to open the additional options. Now, you must click on the "Special" button and then on the "Paragraph mark" option from the drop-down list.
Note that the Word code for a paragraph mark ("^ v") has been inserted in the "Search" box. So click on the "Special" button again and then on "Paragraph mark" in the drop-down list to place a second paragraph mark there.
Note that you can also write «^ v ^ v» in the box yourself if you are already familiar with the codes.
There are now two paragraph marks in the Search box. Click on the "Replace with" box, delete any existing text or characters and then click on the "Special" button. From the drop-down menu, choose "Paragraph mark".
Then. click on the "Replace with" box and then use the special menu to insert a single paragraph mark there
For the final step, click on the "Replace all" button. Click on the "Accept" button and then close the "Search and replace" window.
All occurrences of two paragraph marks have been replaced by a single mark.
As you can see, using the "Search and replace" section can save you a lot of time by replacing special characters in your documents. And we just scratched the surface here. There are more special characters waiting in that menu for you to explore.