Using Find and Replace

When proofreading or editing a manuscript on Microsoft Word, you will often find that you will encounter a certain word or phrase that is consistently incorrect. It would be too time-consuming to scan through the entire document and fix things manually, therefore it’s a good thing Word has a built-in feature to do this for you!

Find and Replace is a quick, easy, and effective way to find a specific word in the manuscript you are working on, and replace it with something else at the click of a button. As previously mentioned, Find and Replace also works on phrases!

How to find Find and Replace on Word

Windows: Go to ‘Home’ and select the ‘Replace’ option. This will open up the Find and Replace tool.

Mac: Click on the ‘Edit’ tab at the top toolbar on your screen, then click ‘Find’ on the dropdown menu and select ‘Replace’. This will open up the Find and Replace tool.

For ease, you can also find the Find and Replace feature by using the ‘Control + H’ keyboard shortcut.

Importance

As a proofreader or editor, consistency is key, and making sure that every spelling of a word or phrase, and format type stays the same is very important. Some like to use Find and Replace during the early stages of the process, by making certain changes using the allocated style sheet. This means you don’t have to scour pages and pages of text to manually fix things, potentially saving you valuable hours that can be focused on a different aspect of the proofreading/editing process.

When you open the Find and Replace menu, you will be presented with two options: Replace or Replace All. The first option allows you to make changes on a word-to-word basis. The latter allows you to replace all incorrect spellings (for example) with the correct spelling in one go, making changes across the whole document.

More

Whilst it may be more common to use the Find and Replace feature to correct spelling and phrasing, it can also be used to fix formatting and even punctuation!

For example, on manuscripts that have been double-spaced when in fact they should be single-spaced, you can insert a double space in the ‘Find’ bar and a single space in the ‘Replace’ bar. By clicking Replace All, you can easily and quickly fix a mistake that would take you hours to do if you were to do it manually.

Sadly, I can’t include pictures that demonstrate how to use Find and Replace on both Windows and MAC, however, I will direct you to Microsoft’s official page. I hope this has enlightened you on one of the ways you can simplify your editing or proofreading process!

Lauren Ternent | The Editorial Geordie