Using Find to Search Inside Word

If you have been working with Word documents for many times now, you know how you can search inside word using Find. This is the most utilized function when you are looking for strings of text within the document. This is also berry helpful and reliable. In addition to that, you do not have to download another program just so you can get the characters, numbers or any string in your Word document. Understanding this function and how it works can be very beneficial especially for those who like using Microsoft Word as their word processor.

It is not a secret that most of the computer users today employ Microsoft Word when they are creating documents, letters and any other type of writing. This is because it contains templates as well as other useful stuff such as grammar and spelling checkers. Now, if you have been working for several months on a certain document that is quite long and you need to look for a certain word there, you can use Find.

There are many reasons why people have to search within Word files for the strings of text. Some may have to change a name, a date or a place. Others may have found you that they commonly misspell some words and yet they are part of the dictionary so Word does not correct them. Whatever your reason is, the Find option is a great help for you. To access this, you can go to Edit menu and then click on the Find option. The keyboard shortcut is CTRL F. Now a dialog box will appear which has three tabs: Find, Replace and Go to. You can just stick to Find if you will only perform a word search.

The Find what box is where you will be typing the word or phrase that you are searching for. To see the results easily, you can check the "highlight all items found in" the "Main Document." There are other options that you can try if Word has returned some results that are not according to your preference. To do this, click on the More button. The dialog box will expand and then the Search Options will appear.

The first one allows you to select whether you want to search in the entire document or you can specify the direction of the search process whether it is downward or upward. Below this are a group of checkboxes with the first one being "Match case." This is helpful for those whoa real searching for abbreviations or anything that is case sensitive. The next one is "Find whole words only." This allows you to search for the exact match of the word or phrase that you have specified. Then, there are the "Use wildcards," "Sounds like," and "Find all word forms."

At the bottom, there are two buttons: Format and Special. Click on them and you will see the options for them. When you need to search inside Word, Find is a helpful tool within the application. Word search will be fast and precise.