Eric Butow - MCA Microsoft Office Specialist (Office 365 and Office 2019) Complete Study Guide

Chapter 1, “Working with Documents,” contained high‐level information about not only how to add text, but also how to find and replace text in your document. In this chapter, I will take a deeper dive into the various ways of finding and replacing text as well as how to insert special characters.

I will then show you how to format text and paragraphs by using text effects, using the Format Painter , and setting spacing and indents for both lines and paragraphs. Next, I will show you how to apply built‐in styles to text, something I also touched on in Chapter 1, as well as to clear any formatting you've made within the text or after you've applied a style that you don't want anymore.

Then I will tell you how to format text in multiple columns as well as add breaks to create a new page, section of text, or column . Finally, I will show you how you can change your page setting options within a section. At the end of each section, I provide an exercise so that you can test yourself and see if you can apply what you've learned.

When you open a new document, the cursor is blinking in the upper‐left corner of the page. All you have to do to add text is just start typing.

When you need to replace a word, it's easy to replace text just by selecting the word and typing a new one. Yet, as your document grows, you'll find that replacing text this way is too cumbersome, which is why Word comes with a handy find and replace feature.

Whenever you need to find text in a document (especially a long document), and possibly replace the text with some new text, Word has this basic function down cold.

There are several ways to find text in your document:

In the Home ribbon, click Find in the Editing area.

In the Navigation pane, the last word you entered is the default find term.

Click in the Search box within the Word title bar, and then type the text that you want to find.

A couple of seconds later, Word lists all instances of the word in the Results list. How Word presents the results depends on the tool you use. For example, when you search for text in the Navigation pane, Word highlights all instances of the text it finds, and it takes you to the first instance of the text in the document (see Figure 2.1).

FIGURE 2.1First instance of the word “AutoFit” highlighted

Change your Find parameters by clicking the down arrow to the right of Find in the Home ribbon and then clicking Advanced Find. The Find And Replace dialog box appears so that you can find using different parameters, including case, the text format, and other special characters (such as an em dash) that you'll learn about in the next section.

When you need to replace text, all you have to do is click the Home menu option (if it isn't selected already). In the Home ribbon, click Replace in the Editing area. The Find And Replace dialog box appears with the Replace tab open, as shown in Figure 2.2.

Replacing text is a two‐step process. First, in the Find What text box type the text in the document that you want to replace. Next, in the Replace With text box type the replacement text.

FIGURE 2.2Find And Replace dialog box

In the dialog box, you see several different options that you can choose to refine your search. When you set one or more options, the options that Word will apply appear underneath the Find text box.

Search By default, the setting is All, which means that you search through the entire document. Click the All box, and then click Up in the drop‐down list to search from your cursor to the beginning of the document or click Down to search from your cursor to the end of the document.

Match Case Select this check box to find and replace words that match the specific capitalization you've typed in the Find What and Replace With text boxes.

Find Whole Words Only Use this option to tell Word not to search for matches in a word. For example, if you want to change the word “one” to “four,” clicking this check box will ensure that Word doesn't change entries like “anyone” to “anyfour.”

Use Wildcards Select this check box and then type an asterisk at the end of the part of the word that you want to find. For example, when you type the* in the Find What box, Word finds all words that start with the letters “the,” such as “these” and “theory.”

Sounds Like (English) When you search in the English language, you can find and replace words that sound similar. (Word includes a database that knows what words sound like.) So, when you click this check box and search for the word “there,” Word will also find the words “their” and “they're.”

Find All Word Forms (English) Word also has a database of verb tenses, so when you click this check box and search for the verb “wind,” Word will also find the words “wound,” “winds,” and “winding.”

Match Prefix If you have a common prefix in your document, such as “pre,” click this check box to find words with the prefix and replace them if you want.

Match Suffix When you have a common suffix in your document, such as “est,” click this check box to find words with that suffix so that you can replace them.

Ignore Punctuation Characters Use this option to tell Word to ignore any punctuation in the text you're searching for.

Ignore White‐Space Characters Use this option to tell Word to ignore all spaces between characters.

Format Button Search for and replace existing text or all text that has certain formatting attributes such as font types, colors, and paragraph alignment.

Special Button Find and replace text elements such as a tab or white space. You can also find and replace a graphic in your document with text or a line, column, page, or section break.

No Formatting Button Click this button to turn off all formatting options you set in the Find What and/or Replace With text boxes.

When you're ready to search for the term or format, click the Find Next button to go to the next instance of the search term.

Click the Replace icon to replace only the next instance of the text with your replacement. If you want to replace any other text that meets your criteria, click the Replace button again to go to the next instance and replace that.

Replace all instances of the text and/or formatting in the Find text box by clicking the Replace All button. If you search from the middle of your document to the end, then when Word finishes its search a dialog box appears and asks if you want to continue searching from the beginning of the document.

When Word completes its search, a dialog box appears in the middle of the screen and tells you how many changes it made. Close the dialog box by clicking OK.

If you just want to find text, click the Find tab in the dialog box.