Find & Replace Non-Keyboard Characters in Word
Notice:
This is written for those users that have experience with Word’s Find/Replace functions including the use of wildcards.
Overview:
Word’s Find and Replace function is a very useful tool that becomes difficult to use when trying to find or replace characters that are not on the keyboard. How do you enter the character in the Find or Replace box if the character is not on the keyboard? Word has provided codes that can be entered by the keyboard that will Find or Replace some of the non-keyboard characters in a document. For reference, these codes are listed below and you can easily see the list doesn’t cover all non-keyboard characters. Word has another set of codes for the Find and Replace functions that work only when the “Use wildcards” option is selected. Unfortunately, when using the wildcards option; Word’s non-keyboard characters codes don’t work, returning an error message that the Word code used is not supported. For those situations where wildcards use is desired in finding non-keyboard characters, and in those situations where the non-keyboard character to be found or replaced is not in Word’s list of codes; there is another way to find and replace those non-keyboard characters as explained below.
Find/Replace Non-Keyboard Characters When Using Wildcards
In order to use the wildcard codes the Use wildcards box in the Advanced Find/Replace settings must be checked. When this box is checked the non-keyboard character codes in Word (such as paragraph, tab, section break, etc.) will not be recognized by Word. These non-keyboard characters can be alternatively found by using the ASCI code for the non-keyboard character in the Find or Replace string.
Example:
I want to search for what, where, or when words that are followed by a carriage return (new paragraph). I would normally enter in the Find box wh*^p using the wildcard * to find any of the words that start with wh followed by the new paragraph code (^p) and I have to check the Use wildcards option to use the wildcard *. I will get a message from Word that ^p is not a recognized special character and can’t be used with the wildcard. If I enter in the Find box wh*^013 (replacing the ^p with ^013) and I will get the results I desire. The ASCI code for a new paragraph is 013 for the font I am using. Use the caret (^) before the ASCI number to tell Word to use the ASCI number to find the character.
You can use the ASCI codes to find non-keyboard characters with or without wildcards. While the ASCI codes for a specific character will change based upon the Font chosen, the codes for the common non-keyboard characters are the same for most Fonts. See list of codes below.
Find/Replace Non-Keyboard Characters That Have No Word Code
Word’s codes to Find/Replace non-keyboard characters is very limited to formatting characters. What about other non-keyboard characters such as symbols and accented letters? You can copy and paste the symbols/letters into the Find/Replace boxes. Another easier way is to use the ASCI codes for the symbol/letters you want to Find/Replace.
Example:
A long scientific document refers to volume measurements in lambas (λ) which is scientific shorthand for the more correct term of microliter (µL). Word does not have Find/Replace codes for these symbols. I use the ASCI codes and enter ^0955 (ASCI code for λ) in the Find box and ^0181L (ASCI code for µ plus the letter L).
The majority of true fonts will have the same ASCI code for the same symbol; however, some fonts will have a different ASCI code for the symbol you want. It is easy to do a search on the Internet to find the ASCI code for your font’s symbol.
Codes for Word’s Find/Replace Functions
Nothing in a column for a character means
no code exists for that character for that function
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Character</td>
<td width=”102″>Word Find
Code</td>
<td width=”126″>Word Replace
Code</td>
<td width=”60″>ASCI
Code</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Annotation Mark (comment)</td>
<td width=”102″>^a</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Any character</td>
<td width=”102″>^?</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Any digit</td>
<td width=”102″>^#</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Any letter</td>
<td width=”102″>^$</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Clipboard Contents</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″>^c</td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Column break</td>
<td width=”102″>^n</td>
<td width=”126″>^n</td>
<td width=”60″>0014</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Contents of Find box</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″>^&</td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Em dash (long dash)</td>
<td width=”102″>^+</td>
<td width=”126″>^+</td>
<td width=”60″>0151</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>En dash (short dash)</td>
<td width=”102″>^=</td>
<td width=”126″>^=</td>
<td width=”60″>0150</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Endnote mark</td>
<td width=”102″>^e</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Field</td>
<td width=”102″>^d</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Footnote mark</td>
<td width=”102″>^f</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0002</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Graphic</td>
<td width=”102″>^g</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Line break</td>
<td width=”102″>^l</td>
<td width=”126″>^l</td>
<td width=”60″>0011</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Manual Page break</td>
<td width=”102″>^m</td>
<td width=”126″>^m</td>
<td width=”60″>0012</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Nonbreaking hyphen</td>
<td width=”102″>^~</td>
<td width=”126″>^~</td>
<td width=”60″>0030</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Nonbreaking space</td>
<td width=”102″>^s</td>
<td width=”126″>^s</td>
<td width=”60″>0032</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Optional hyphen</td>
<td width=”102″>^-</td>
<td width=”126″>^-</td>
<td width=”60″>0031</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Paragraph mark (carriage return)</td>
<td width=”102″>^p</td>
<td width=”126″>^p</td>
<td width=”60″>0013</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Section break</td>
<td width=”102″>^b</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0012</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Tab character</td>
<td width=”102″>^t</td>
<td width=”126″>^t</td>
<td width=”60″>0009</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>White space</td>
<td width=”102″>^w</td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Comma</td>
<td width=”102″>,</td>
<td width=”126″>,</td>
<td width=”60″>0130</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Bullet</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0149</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Cent (¢)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0162</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Pound (£)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0163</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Degree (°)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0176</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Registered (®)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0174</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Copyright (©)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0169</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Lamba (λ)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0955</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Micro (µ)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0181</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Inverted Question mark (¿)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0191</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td width=”258″>Divide (÷)</td>
<td width=”102″> </td>
<td width=”126″> </td>
<td width=”60″>0247</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
This table does not contain all the codes, but the most used ones.
HTH, Dana:))
