Find and Replace

Find every occurrence of a word and replace it in one click.

Find

Replace with

Input

Result

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Find and Replace swaps every occurrence of one piece of text for another in a single step. Paste your text into the input box, type what to look for in Find and its substitute in Replace with, then press Replace all. The edited version appears in the Result box while your original input stays unchanged.

The matching rules

Exact and case-sensitive. Finding "cat" does not touch "Cat" or "CAT".
Matches inside words. Finding "cat" also changes the first three letters of "category".
Every occurrence, one pass. All matches are replaced from left to right without re-scanning the new text.
Plain text, not patterns. Characters such as ., *, $ and ? are searched for literally; there are no wildcards or regular expressions.
Empty replacement deletes. Leave Replace with blank to remove every occurrence.
If Find is empty, you will see "Enter text to find." instead of a result.

Examples, including the classic trap

Updating a notice: in "Fee for session 2025-26 is due. Session 2025-26 starts in June.", finding 2025-26 and replacing it with 2026-27 updates both mentions at once.

The trap: in "cat category Cat", finding cat and replacing with dog gives "dog dogegory Cat". The match inside "category" was replaced, and the capitalised "Cat" was not. To target whole words, include a surrounding space in both fields (" cat " to " dog "), but check words at the start or end of a line and before punctuation separately.

One pass only: "aaaa" with aa replaced by a gives "aa", not "a". Press the button again, after copying the result back into the input, if you need to repeat.

Swapping two words without losing one

To exchange "left" and "right" throughout a document, a direct replacement would turn everything into one word. Use three passes with a placeholder that does not occur anywhere in the text:

Replace left with #TMP#.
Replace right with left.
Replace #TMP# with right.

Copy the result back into the input between passes.

Useful jobs for it

Changing a name, date, price or product code across a template, letter or mail-merge draft.
Switching British and American spellings, such as "colour" to "color".
Deleting repeated junk from copied text, like "Page " headers or a tracking tag in links.
Turning separators around, for example replacing ";" with "," before importing a list.

What it cannot do

The Find box is a single line, so it cannot search for line breaks. To join lines use Remove Line Breaks, and to turn a list into one comma-separated line use List to Comma Separated. It also does not report how many replacements were made, so skim the result before using it, especially after short search terms that might appear inside longer words.

Frequently asked questions

Is find and replace case-sensitive?

Yes. It only replaces text with exactly the same capitalisation, so run it separately for "Cat" and "cat" if you need both.

How do I replace only whole words?

Add a space before and after the word in both the Find and Replace fields, then handle any matches at the start of lines or next to punctuation separately.

How do I delete a word from all of my text?

Type the word in Find, leave Replace with empty, and press Replace all. Every occurrence is removed.

Does it support regular expressions or wildcards?

No. Everything you type is matched literally, including dots, asterisks and dollar signs.

Can I find and replace line breaks?

No, the Find field is a single line. Use a line break remover or list converter for that job.