Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021. 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: Keeping a Replace Operation Displayed.

Keeping a Replace Operation Displayed

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated July 30, 2022)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, Word in Microsoft 365, and 2021

When Sarra uses the Find and Replace feature in Word and clicks on the Replace button, Word makes the change and automatically moves to the next occurrence of whatever she is searching for. She would like the program to make the change and not move to the next occurrence, but keep visible where the change was made.

If you use the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box, then there is no way to do this; clicking the Replace button does the replace and automatically displays the next occurrence of whatever you are searching. There is, however, a rather simple workaround. Follow these general steps:

Copy the replacement text to the Clipboard.
Use Ctrl+F to find the first match, then press Esc to get rid of the dialog box. (What you were searching for should still be selected.)
Press Ctrl+V. Word replaces the selected text with the replacement text in the Clipboard.
Press Ctrl+Pg Dn.
Repeat steps 3 and 4 as many times as desired.

This isn't the only workaround, however. You can also follow these similar steps:

Copy the replacement text to the Clipboard.
Use Ctrl+F to find the first match, then press Esc to get rid of the dialog box. (What you were searching for should still be selected.)
Press Ctrl+V. Word replaces the selected text with the replacement text in the Clipboard.
Press Shift+F4 to repeat the last find operation.
Press F4 to repeat the last edit operation.
Repeat steps 4 and 5 as many times as desired.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (10600) 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: Keeping a Replace Operation Displayed.

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. Learn more about Allen...

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