HOWTO: Find and Replace Text in Word and Excel Files

To find the Microsoft Office file(s) of the required type and replace text in them, do the following.

1. Specify the folder in which you want to find files. For example: C:\MyOfficeFiles
2. Set mask(s) of the files that you want to find.
   • To search for the native Microsoft Word files (.doc), set the filter to *.doc.
   • To search for .rtf files to be processed with Microsoft Word, set the filter to *.rtf.
   • To search for both .doc and .rtf files to be processed with Microsoft Word, set the filter to *.rtf;*.doc.
   • To search for Microsoft Excel files (.xls), set the filter to *.xls.
   • If you need to process both Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word files, set the filter to *.rtf;*.doc;*.xls.
3. Type in the text that you want to find in the Find What field.
4. Enter the text that you want to replace the found text in the Replace With field.
5. The Microsoft Office searches allows using the Case-sensitive search. If you need to find text exactly as you have typed, check this option.

   IMPORTANT!
   
   Make sure the options that allow utilizing Microsoft Office facilities are on. To enable the processing, click the Options button, go to the Processing tab and check options Process .doc and .rtf files in Microsoft Word and/or Process .xls files in Microsoft Excel. If these options are inactive, the safety filter will reject such files (except .rtf because in fact they are text files) and will not allow processing them.

6. Make sure the option Search only is unchecked.
7. Click the Replace button.

To simply search for files containing the text without modifying them, click the Search button.