Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Word versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 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: Pay Attention to Case when Searching for ASCII Codes.

Pay Attention to Case when Searching for ASCII Codes

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated June 17, 2023)
This tip applies to Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365


You may already know that you can search for most anything when you are using Word's searching tool. One of the things for which you can search is any character's ASCII code. What you may not know is that searching for an ASCII code is not case sensitive.

What does this mean? When you search for an ASCII character such as ^0065 (the capital letter A), you should not expect Word to only return the letter A; it also matches with the lowercase letter a, which is an ASCII code of ^0097. This anomaly only happens when searching for alphabetic characters.

To get around the problem, make sure you utilize the Match Case check box, the same as you would if you were looking for letters instead of ASCII codes. In other words, if you only want ^0065 to match with an uppercase A (and only an uppercase A), then you should make sure that Match Case is selected before doing your search.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (12394) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, and Word in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Word here: Pay Attention to Case when Searching for ASCII Codes.

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. ...

MORE FROM ALLEN

Arranging Workbook Windows

If you find yourself working with a number of different workbooks at the same time, you may want to arrange your desktop ...

Discover More

Changing Error Checking Rules

Excel can check the data and formulas in your worksheet to see if it detects any errors. The rules used for this checking ...

Discover More

Spotty Recalculation

Does your worksheet or workbook not always recalculate like you expect? If so, then some of the ideas in this tip may ...

Discover More

Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!

More WordTips (ribbon)

Initiating a New Search

I do a lot of searching in my documents. Sometimes the searches may not go exactly as I expected. Here are some things I ...

Discover More

Searching for Footnote and Endnote Marks

Do you want to quickly search for any footnote or endnote marks in your document? Word makes it easy using the standard ...

Discover More

Getting Rid of Trailing Spaces in Footnotes and Endnotes

The Find and Replace tool can get rid of trailing spaces in paragraphs quite nicely. If those spaces are at the end of ...

Discover More
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

View most recent newsletter.

Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five minus 0?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


This Site

Got a version of Word that uses the ribbon interface (Word 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Word, visit our WordTips site focusing on the menu interface.

Videos
Subscribe

FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in WordTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."

(Your e-mail address is not shared with anyone, ever.)

View the most recent newsletter.