WORD-EXCEL: Search & Destroy (aka Find & Replace)

Here's how you can search a document or spreadsheet (Word/Excel) for a word(s).  There's two parts to this:

To Find:

• In your document/spreadsheet, hit Cntrl F (hold down the Control key and hit the F key)
• In the Find & Replace window, on the Find tab, key what you want to find in the document/spreadsheet, for instance, Find Chicago
• Click the Find Next button to scroll through your document/spreadsheet

To Replace (here's the bonus section):

• Hit Cntrl F to get the Find & Replace window
• In Find What, type Chicago
• In Replace With, type New York (for instance)

With this option, you can choose to replace while scrolling through OR you can choose to Replace All.

This tip comes in handy if you have a letter you have already typed and you want to make a form out of it.  You can use the Find & Replace to find the (variable) spots you want to replace with a blank spot.


Another way to use this tip is if you want to count the number of times you used a certain word in your document/spreadsheet... just use the word you want to count for both Find and Replace!