Easily Finding Superscripts

Anthony has a long Word document that includes a number of superscripts. As one of his proofreading steps he needs to check each of the superscripts, so he wonders if there is an easy way to highlight all of them so he can find them easily.

Making the superscripts stand out can be easily accomplished by using the Find and Replace capabilities built into Word. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Display the Home tab of the ribbon.
2. Using the drop-down arrow next to the Highlight tool (in the Font group), select a highlight color you want to use for your superscripts.
3. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
4. Click the More button, if it is available. (See Figure 1.)



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

5. Make sure both the Find What and Replace With boxes are empty.
6. Click once in the Find What box.
7. Choose Format | Font. Word displays the Find Font dialog box. (See Figure 2.)



Figure 2. The Find Font dialog box.

8. Click the Superscript check box until it shows as selected.
9. Click OK to close the Find Font dialog box.
10. Enter "^&" (without the quote marks) in the Replace With box. This indicates you want whatever was found to be used as the replacement. (Doing this makes sure your superscripts aren't destroyed.)
11. With the insertion point still in the Replace With box, click Format | Highlight.
12. Click Replace All.

At this point, all your superscripts are highlighted using whatever color you selected in step 2. Of course, if all you needed to do was to check the superscripts, there was no need to highlight them, meaning you could have skipped steps 1, 2, 10, and 11. Instead of step 12, you simply could have clicked Find Next to step through each of the superscripts and review them.

If you do, however, add highlighting, at some point you will want to remove that highlighting. Here's how you can get rid of it:

1. Press Ctrl+H. Word displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. Click the More button, if it is available.
3. Make sure both the Find What and Replace With boxes are empty.
4. Click once in the Find What box.
5. Click the No Formatting button.
6. Choose Format | Highlight.
7. Click once in the Replace With box.
8. Click the No Formatting button.
9. Click Replace All.

WordTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Word training. (Microsoft Word is the most popular word processing software in the world.) This tip (13110) applies to Microsoft Word 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2021.