Imagine the following scenario. You have spent much time on a long paper, project plan, or legal contract and right before sending it to someone you notice that…

• The name of someone is misspelled in the paper.
• Or the marketing department has modified name of a product recently and has left some old branding in the paper.

Your eyes are already exhausted from reading and thinking that you have to read through the paper to find the mistakes makes you want to turn off you PC immediately. However, you do not have to do this.

Find and Replace is one of those simple programs that you can only appreciate when you find yourself in desperate need for it. When used correctly, these tools make the process of searching and selecting very easy.

Find and Replace can be even more useful when complemented by some features such as case-sensitive search, search for whole words, etc. Instead of carefully examining a document for the expression, person, date, or link in question, you can use this automated method to do the job. The shortcuts for Find and Replace will vary from software to software, but if you forget what they are, you can browse through the Edit Menu.

Using browsers such as Chrome and Safari will make the process of searching much easier. However, when it comes to conducting Find and Replace, you must have a text application open. The specifics of Find and Replace differ a lot from one program to another, but the rules are similar.

Web Apps

Working with documents online is very convenient nowadays due to the collaborative work feature. Thus, the editorial tools often include simple functionalities of Find and Replace.

In this case, it is reasonable to mention such option as Match Case. As an example, while searching for the word “apple,” it should be specified whether you want to apply Match Case or not. You need to make several manual replacements prior to replacing too many instances in a single go. This way, you would be able to save a great deal of effort and time in future.

Web Table

Using spreadsheets manually is often not a valid option. However, Find and Replace functions introduced by web spreadsheet solutions provide good opportunities for users to manage their search. Depending on the specific solution, it is possible to carry out a search either in a particular row or in the entire workbook.

Some spreadsheet apps even allow searching in formulas. The functionality could be particularly helpful in case of the necessity to edit the URL, reference, annotation or any number of similar values found in numerous cells. One doesn’t need to change individual cells since the required amendment can be made in the entire particular segment.

Web-Based Code Editors

The use of Find and Replace in web-based editors has to be performed with a special caution. A minor alteration in variable or function name can result in some unpredictable changes in the entire code.

Many code editors offer various functions like being case-sensitive during searching, searching for complete words, replacing multiple files, and using regular expressions. These functions allow performing the required changes without changing every modified word in the code.

The Amazing Function: Pattern Matching

Manual Find and Replace is very effective when the actual text is known. But using regular expressions (or regex), searching for patterns instead of fixed expressions becomes possible.

Let’s suppose you have a document with different dates which are written the same way: Only numbers are various, and looking for a specific date will not be of any help. In this case, regex will help get the search engine find the needed pattern consisting of two digits, some sign, two digits, some sign. After that the program would locate the required dates even without the exact numbers.

Regular expressions helps to find:

• text in the start of the line
• text in the end of the line
• single digits and number groups
• multiple spaces
• empty lines
• places of the line break
• text with the specific pattern

Syntaxes used depend on the support of the platform, so it is reasonable to check the documentation before implementing big changes in the document. Even though it is most likely the strongest technology existing, regex will not make it through the errors. So it is better to check the created pattern while implementing it only on the one point.

Make a Backup of Your Document before Editing

Always back up your document or at least have access to its previous versions. If the changes do not go well you can always bring back the changes, but in the case with big changes using the history is safer, as it allows to return to some previous version of the document. The bigger change you want to make the more important it is to make a back up.

Be Careful About Words Within Words

One issue may occur when you want a word to change, however, the word may be included in another word. Let’s take the word “man” and make it “person”. In case you do not think about similar meaning words you may make “management” be “personagement.”

This is the Scunthorpe problem. In order to avoid it when possible use Match Whole Word function while replacing a new word. This makes it possible to make the changes without replacing the longer words containing those necessary letters. It is a good solution saving time.

Conclusion

Using Find and Replace might not be the most interesting thing to do. Regular search can help you with typos, while advanced search gives you control over the process. Different searches can help you deal with a lot of words that are repeated.

If you want to change some text you can consider online Find and Replace tool. Be cautious and responsible and you will succeed. This is the functionality of Find and Replace tool. Next time when you have to deal with lots of information to be changed use Find and Replace feature