Searching for a Specific Field

Other issues of WordTips have featured ways in which you can search for field codes in general. You may be wondering how you can search for a specific type of field code. You can do it by following these steps in Word 2007:

1. Make sure field codes (the actual codes, not the results of the codes) are showing in your document. If not, press Alt+F9 to display them.
2. Press Ctrl+F. Word displays the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box. (See Figure 1.)



Figure 1. The Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

3. In the Find What box, type either ^d or ^19. This is the code to find the opening field brace.
4. Type a space followed by the field name.
5. If available, click the More button.
6. Make sure no formatting is being searched for, and that no other check boxes in the dialog box are selected.
7. Click on Find Next.

As an example, if you wanted to find a DATE field, after following steps 3 and 4, you would be searching for "^d DATE" (without the quote marks, of course).

Simple searching in Word 2010 and later versions is different than in earlier versions of Word. You can, if you desire, follow the above steps, but in place of step 2 make sure that you display the Home tab of the ribbon, click the down-arrow next to the Find tool, and then choose Advanced Find. An alternative, though, is to use the simplified Navigation pane:

1. Make sure field codes are showing in your document. If not, press Alt+F9 to display them.
2. Press Ctrl+F. Word displays the Navigation pane at the left side of your document.
3. In the box at the top of the pane, type either ^d or ^19. This is the code to find the opening field brace.
4. Type a space followed by the field name.

Now the Navigation pane should show all matches for your desired field. Click the one that is the one you want, and Word jumps to that location in the document.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (1430) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Searching for a Specific Field.