Microsoft Word Find-and-Replace Tip

In my Bible study notes, I prefix comments for each verse with "V1 - " or "V6-7". I don't bother formatting while I'm taking notes because messing with formatting also messes with the flow of my thoughts. Periodically, I go back and run a Find-and-Replace on my notes files to format those prefixes, but the method to do that isn't obvious.

Here's what you do:

• Press Ctrl-H to open the Find/Replace dialog box.
• Check the "Use wildcards" box.
• Enter this text in the "Find what" field: (V[0-9] - ). This tells Word to find the next instance of the letter V followed by 1 number, a space, a dash, and another space. The parenthesis tells Word to treat the found text as a text group.
• Enter this text in the "Replace with" field: \1. This tells Word to replace the found text with the exact same text group.
• With your cursor in the "Replace with" field, click the Format dropdown button. Select Font, then Bold (under "Font style"), and click OK.
• The Find and Replace dialog box should look like this:
  
  
  
  
  
• Click Find Next to find the next instance of the desired text.
• Click Replace to replace only the one instance. This will let you test to make sure you have everything right.
• Repeat that last step until you're certain you have the correct formula in each field, then click Replace All.

If you need to find and replace 2 digits, put "(V[0-9][0-9] - )" in the "Find what" box. To find one "V1-2" use "(V[0-9]-[0-9] - )". You can find any alphabetic character using "[A-Za-z]", any upper case alphabetic character with "[A-Z]", and any lower case alphabetic character with "[a-z]". And so on. I'm sure you get the gist.