One of the best things about working electronically is that when you need to find something in your manuscript, you can use search tools instead of flipping through pages. Seriously, I owe whoever came up with Ctrl+F a huge debt of gratitude!
In a regular search, you just type in what you’re looking for and hit enter. But what do you do if you don’t know the exact spelling of what you’re looking for? Or if you want to find multiple word forms at once? Or can’t physically type in the character you’re trying to find? Well, you’re in luck, because there are lots of options to help you find anything in Microsoft Word.
This blog will cover:
- Advanced Find
- Wildcard Search
- ASCII codes
Advanced Find
If you really want to make use Find, take a look at the advanced search options. Click on the arrow beside the search bar or next to the Find icon under the Home Tab, choose Advanced Find, and click the More button to see all the extra search options.
| Match case | Finds instances of the search term with the same capitalization, ex. searching Hope with Match Case on will fine Hope but not hope |
| Find whole words only | Finds only whole words, ex. searching list will only find list and not listing or listen |
| Use wildcards | Allows searching using wildcards |
| Sounds like | Finds words that sound like the search term, ex. searching sun will find sun as well as son |
| Find all word forms | Finds all forms of the search term, ex. searching match will find match, matched, and matching |
| Match prefix | Finds words beginning with the search term, ex. searching pre finds prepare and predetermined but not unprepared |
| Match suffix | Finds words ending with the search term, ex. searching ing will find singing and dancing but not singe |
| Ignore punctuation characters | Ignores punctuation (periods, commas, etc.) between words, ex. searching dark blue will find dark blue as well as dark, blue |
| Ignore white-space characters | Ignores white spaces (spaces, tabs, etc.) between words, ex. searching copyeditor will find copyeditor as well as copy editor |
You can also click on the Format button to choose among formatting options to search for specific formatting.
| Font | Finds search text only in the selected font |
| Paragraph | Finds search text only in the selected paragraph formatting |
| Tabs | Finds search text located at selected Tab stops |
| Language | Finds search text in specified language |
| Frame | |
| Style | Finds search text only in the selected paragraph style |
| Highlight | Finds search text only if the text is highlighted |
And lastly, you can click on the Special button to add codes for various marks, characters, white spaces, punctuation marks, breaks, and typographic elements to the search field. You can also directly type any of these codes in yourself.
| Special character | Search Code |
| Paragraph mark | ^p |
| Tab character | ^t |
| Any character | ^? |
| Any digit | ^# |
| Any letter | ^$ |
| Carat character | ^^ |
| Section character | ^% |
| Paragraph character | ^v |
| Column break | ^n |
| Em dash | ^+ |
| En dash | ^= |
| Endnote mark | ^e |
| Field | ^d |
| Footnote mark | ^f |
| Graphic | ^g |
| Manual line break | ^l |
| Manual page break | ^m |
| Non-breaking hyphen | ^~ |
| Non-breaking space | ^s |
| Optional hyphen | ^- |
| Section break | ^b |
| White space | ^w |
Wildcard Search
Wildcards are special characters that act as placeholders for unknown characters. They’re helpful when you’re trying to find items that are similar but not identical. For example, you can use wildcards to search for two different spellings of the same name if you changed how to spell a character’s name halfway through your manuscript.
To use wildcards, Use Wildcards must be checked off in the Advanced Find menu. Note that while wildcards are turned on, search codes for special characters cannot be used.
| Wildcard character | Description |
| * | Matches any number of characters. Ex. Searching demon* will find demonology and demonic but not demographic or demolish |
| ? | Matches any single character Ex. Searching ?ristina will find Cristina and Kristina |
| [] | Matches characters within the brackets Ex. Searching f[ae]ll will find fall and fell, but not fill or full |
| ! | Excludes characters inside brackets Ex. Searching f[!ae]ll will find fill and full, but not fall or fill |
| – | Matches a range of characters from A to Z Ex. Searching [b-d]ad will find bad, cad, dad, but not fad, gad, had etc. |
| # | Matches any single numeric character Ex. Searching #00 will find 100, 200, 300 etc. |
ASCII Codes
ASCII, or the American Standard Code for Information Interchange, is a standard character set for electronic devices. Letters, numbers, and punctuation all have ASCII codes that you can be use in searches.
The first 32 codes (numbers 0–31) are control codes. They’re for controlling peripherals like printers, so you shouldn’t need to use them for searching. Codes 32–127 are for printable characters: letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and some symbols. Since the characters these codes represent are usually on keyboards, you can usually just type in the character instead of using the ASCII code.
The ASCII codes that are most helpful in search are codes 128 and beyond. These are for characters that are harder to type into the search box, either because they aren’t on a traditional keyboard or they need further distinction than straight typing allows. (Typing a double quotation mark into the search field will return all quotation marks, rather than a specific opening or closing quotation mark, for example.)
| 128 | € | Euro sign |
| 129 | Unused | |
| 130 | ‚ | Single low-9 quotation mark |
| 131 | ƒ | Latin small letter f with hook |
| 132 | „ | Double low-9 quotation mark |
| 133 | … | Horizontal ellipsis |
| 134 | † | Dagger |
| 135 | ‡ | Double dagger |
| 136 | ˆ | Modifier letter circumflex accent |
| 137 | ‰ | Per mille sign |
| 138 | Š | Latin capital letter S with caron |
| 139 | ‹ | Single left-pointing angle quotation |
| 140 | Π| Latin capital ligature OE |
| 141 | Unused | |
| 142 | Ž | Latin capital letter Z with caron |
| 143 | Unused | |
| 144 | Unused | |
| 145 | ‘ | Left single quotation mark |
| 146 | ’ | Right single quotation mark |
| 147 | “ | Left double quotation mark |
| 148 | ” | Right double quotation mark |
| 149 | • | Bullet |
| 150 | – | En dash |
| 151 | — | Em dash |
| 152 | ˜ | Small tilde |
| 153 | ™ | Trade mark sign |
| 154 | š | Latin small letter S with caron |
| 155 | › | Single right-pointing angle quotation mark |
| 156 | œ | Latin small ligature oe |
| 157 | Unused | |
| 158 | ž | Latin small letter z with caron |
| 159 | Ÿ | Latin capital letter Y with diaeresis |
| 160 | NBSP | Non-breaking space |
| 161 | ¡ | Inverted exclamation mark |
| 162 | ¢ | Cent sign |
| 163 | £ | Pound sign |
| 164 | ¤ | Currency sign |
| 165 | ¥ | Yen sign |
| 166 | ¦ | Pipe, broken vertical bar |
| 167 | § | Section sign |
| 168 | ¨ | Spacing diaeresis – umlaut |
| 169 | © | Copyright sign |
| 170 | ª | Feminine ordinal indicator |
| 171 | « | Left double angle quotes |
| 172 | ¬ | Negation |
| 173 | SHY | Soft hyphen |
| 174 | ® | Registered trade mark sign |
| 175 | ¯ | Spacing macron – overline |
| 176 | ° | Degree sign |
| 177 | ± | Plus-or-minus sign |
| 178 | ² | Superscript two – squared |
| 179 | ³ | Superscript three – cubed |
| 180 | ´ | Acute accent – spacing acute |
| 181 | µ | Micro sign |
| 182 | ¶ | Pilcrow sign – paragraph sign |
| 183 | · | Middle dot – Georgian comma |
| 184 | ¸ | Spacing cedilla |
| 185 | ¹ | Superscript one |
| 186 | º | Masculine ordinal indicator |
| 187 | » | Right double angle quotes |
| 188 | ¼ | Fraction one quarter |
| 189 | ½ | Fraction one half |
| 190 | ¾ | Fraction three quarters |
| 191 | ¿ | Inverted question mark |
| 192 | À | Latin capital letter A with grave |
| 193 | Á | Latin capital letter A with acute |
| 194 | Â | Latin capital letter A with circumflex |
| 195 | Ã | Latin capital letter A with tilde |
| 196 | Ä | Latin capital letter A with diaeresis |
| 197 | Å | Latin capital letter A with ring above |
| 198 | Æ | Latin capital letter AE |
| 199 | Ç | Latin capital letter C with cedilla |
| 200 | È | Latin capital letter E with grave |
| 201 | É | Latin capital letter E with acute |
| 202 | Ê | Latin capital letter E with circumflex |
| 203 | Ë | Latin capital letter E with diaeresis |
| 204 | Ì | Latin capital letter I with grave |
| 205 | Í | Latin capital letter I with acute |
| 206 | Î | Latin capital letter I with circumflex |
| 207 | Ï | Latin capital letter I with diaeresis |
| 208 | Ð | Latin capital letter ETH |
| 209 | Ñ | Latin capital letter N with tilde |
| 210 | Ò | Latin capital letter O with grave |
| 211 | Ó | Latin capital letter O with acute |
| 212 | Ô | Latin capital letter O with circumflex |
| 213 | Õ | Latin capital letter O with tilde |
| 214 | Ö | Latin capital letter O with diaeresis |
| 215 | × | Multiplication sign |
| 216 | Ø | Latin capital letter O with slash |
| 217 | Ù | Latin capital letter U with grave |
| 218 | Ú | Latin capital letter U with acute |
| 219 | Û | Latin capital letter U with circumflex |
| 220 | Ü | Latin capital letter U with diaeresis |
| 221 | Ý | Latin capital letter Y with acute |
| 222 | Þ | Latin capital letter THORN |
| 223 | ß | Latin small letter sharp s – ess-zed |
| 224 | à | Latin small letter a with grave |
| 225 | á | Latin small letter a with acute |
| 226 | â | Latin small letter a with circumflex |
| 227 | ã | Latin small letter a with tilde |
| 228 | ä | Latin small letter a with diaeresis |
| 229 | å | Latin small letter a with ring above |
| 230 | æ | Latin small letter ae |
| 231 | ç | Latin small letter c with cedilla |
| 232 | è | Latin small letter e with grave |
| 233 | é | Latin small letter e with acute |
| 234 | ê | Latin small letter e with circumflex |
| 235 | ë | Latin small letter e with diaeresis |
| 236 | ì | Latin small letter i with grave |
| 237 | í | Latin small letter i with acute |
| 238 | î | Latin small letter i with circumflex |
| 239 | ï | Latin small letter i with diaeresis |
| 240 | ð | Latin small letter eth |
| 241 | ñ | Latin small letter n with tilde |
| 242 | ò | Latin small letter o with grave |
| 243 | ó | Latin small letter o with acute |
| 244 | ô | Latin small letter o with circumflex |
| 245 | õ | Latin small letter o with tilde |
| 246 | ö | Latin small letter o with diaeresis |
| 247 | ÷ | Division sign |
| 248 | ø | Latin small letter o with slash |
| 249 | ù | Latin small letter u with grave |
| 250 | ú | Latin small letter u with acute |
| 251 | û | Latin small letter u with circumflex |
| 252 | ü | Latin small letter u with diaeresis |
| 253 | ý | Latin small letter y with acute |
| 254 | þ | Latin small letter thorn |
| 255 | ÿ | Latin small letter y with diaeresis |
To search using ACII codes, type in the carat character (^) and zero, then the code for the character you’re looking for. For example, if you want to search for a single left quotation mark, type ^0145 into the search field.
Search Anything
It may take a while to get comfortable using all these search tools, but it’s worthwhile. Mastering Advanced Find, wildcards, and ASCII codes (and how they can work together or in sequence) will save you time and effort when you’re looking for things in your manuscript.
