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Finding and Replacing Text or Formatting

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Finding and replacing is exposed by the Find and Replacement objects. The Find object is available from the Selection object and the Range object. The find action differs slightly depending upon whether you access the Find object from the Selection object or the Range object.

Finding text and selecting it

If the Find object is accessed from the Selection object, the selection is changed when the find criteria is found. The following example selects the next occurrence of the word "Hello." If the end of the document is reached before the word "Hello" is found, the search is stopped.

With Selection.Find 
 .Forward = True 
 .Wrap = wdFindStop 
 .Text = "Hello" 
 .Execute 
End With

The Find object includes properties that relate to the options in the Find and Replace dialog box. You can set the individual properties of the Find object or use arguments with the Execute method, as shown in the following example.

Selection.Find.Execute FindText:="Hello", _ 
 Forward:=True, Wrap:=wdFindStop

Finding text without changing the selection

If the Find object is accessed from a Range object, the selection is not changed but the Range is redefined when the find criteria is found. The following example locates the first occurrence of the word "blue" in the active document. If the find operation is successful, the range is redefined and bold formatting is applied to the word "blue."

With ActiveDocument.Content.Find 
 .Text = "blue" 
 .Forward = True 
 .Execute 
 If .Found = True Then .Parent.Bold = True 
End With

The following example performs the same result as the previous example, using arguments of the Execute method.

Set myRange = ActiveDocument.Content 
myRange.Find.Execute FindText:="blue", Forward:=True 
If myRange.Find.Found = True Then myRange.Bold = True

Using the Replacement object

The Replacement object represents the replace criteria for a find and replace operation. The properties and methods of the Replacement object correspond to the options in the Find and Replace dialog box (Edit menu).

The Replacement object is available from the Find object. The following example replaces all occurrences of the word "hi" with "hello". The selection changes when the find criteria is found because the Find object is accessed from the Selection object.

With Selection.Find 
 .ClearFormatting 
 .Text = "hi" 
 .Replacement.ClearFormatting 
 .Replacement.Text = "hello" 
 .Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll, Forward:=True, _ 
 Wrap:=wdFindContinue 
End With

The following example removes bold formatting in the active document. The Bold property is True for the Find object and False for the Replacement object. To find and replace formatting, set the find and replace text to empty strings ("") and set the Format argument of the Execute method to True. The selection remains unchanged because the Find object is accessed from a Range object (the Content property returns a Range object).

With ActiveDocument.Content.Find 
 .ClearFormatting 
 .Font.Bold = True 
 With .Replacement 
 .ClearFormatting 
 .Font.Bold = False 
 End With 
 .Execute FindText:="", ReplaceWith:="", _ 
 Format:=True, Replace:=wdReplaceAll 
End With

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