Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Word 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Word, click here: Searching for ASCII and ANSI Characters.

Searching for ASCII and ANSI Characters

by Allen Wyatt
(last updated January 2, 2021)

Word allows you to search for any ASCII or ANSI character. To search for ASCII characters, follow these steps:

  1. Press Ctrl+F. Word displays the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box (Word 2007) or the Navigation pane at the left side of the screen (Word 2010 and later versions).
  2. In the Find What box (Word 2007) or the search box (later versions), enter the text for which you want to search. To search for an ASCII character, enter a carat (^) followed by the three numbers representing the ASCII value of the character. For instance, to search for an uppercase A, you could enter ^065.
  3. Set other searching parameters, as desired.
  4. Click on Find Next (Word 2007) or click on the up arrow or down arrow to the right of the results in the Navigation pane (later versions) to move through the search results.

You can search for an ANSI character by following these steps:

  1. Press Ctrl+F. Word displays the Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box (Word 2007) or the Navigation pane at the left side of the screen (Word 2010 and later versions).
  2. In the Find What box (Word 2007) or the search box (later versions), enter the text for which you want to search. To search for an ANSI character, enter a carat (^) followed by a zero and the three numbers representing the ANSI value of the character.
  3. Set other searching parameters, as desired.
  4. Click on Find Next (Word 2007) or click on the up arrow or down arrow to the right of the results in the Navigation pane (later versions) to move through the search results.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (9690) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Word in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Searching for ASCII and ANSI Characters.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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