Microsoft Office is also available for Mac, in which case you can open any Office document format. If you haven't bought iWork or Microsoft Office for Mac, you can use Apple's TextEdit application or download a free office software package such as OpenOffice. Download and install the free Mac productivity suite, NeoOffice to open Word documents. The NeoOffice word processing program, Writer, opens.doc and.docx files. You can also save NeoOffice Writer files in both formats. As an open source project, NeoOffice is free of charge.
You can search for specific words, phrases, numbers, and characters, and automatically replace search results with new content that you specify. All visible content in the document—the main body text, headers and footers, tables, text boxes, shapes, footnotes and endnotes, and comments—is included in the search.
Search for specific text
- Click in the toolbar, then choose Show Find & Replace.
- In the search field, enter the word or phrase you want to find.Matches are highlighted as you enter text.
- To find words that match the capitalization you specify, or to restrict search results to the whole words you entered, click , then choose Whole Words or Match Case (or both).
- Click the arrow buttons to find the next or previous match.
In a table cell, Pages matches only the value that’s displayed, not the underlying value or formula. For example, if a recipe calls for “1/2 cup,” a search for “0.5” has no matches.
To see or clear recent searches, click the magnifying glass in the search field.
Replace found text
- Click in the toolbar, then choose Show Find & Replace.
- Click in the Find & Replace window, then choose Find & Replace.You can also choose other options, such as Whole Words and Match Case, to refine your search.
- Enter a word or phrase in the first field.As you enter text, matches are highlighted. The first match is selected and highlighted in yellow.
- Enter the replacement word or phrase in the second field.Important: If you leave the Replace field blank, all instances of the text are deleted when you replace the found text.
- Use the buttons at the bottom of the Find & Replace window to review and change the text matches:
- Replace All: Replaces all text matches with the replacement text.
- Replace & Find: Replaces the selected match and moves to the next.
- Replace: Replaces the selected match with the replacement text but doesn’t move to the next match.
- Previous and Next arrows: Move to the previous or next match without making a change.
Replacing a table value updates both the displayed value and the underlying value. For example, if you replace “1/2” with “1/3,” the underlying value changes from “0.5” to “0.333333.”
You can’t replace matching text in table cells that contain a formula.
See also
Related Articles
- 1 Search PPT
- 2 Five Ways to Open Microsoft Word
- 3 Open .Doc in WordPad
- 4 Find Lost Saved Files
Word and Excel are part of Microsoft’s Office suite of productivity software. If your small business has been using Office for a while, chances are you have hundreds if not thousands of Word and Excel files on your computer. Finding the one you want can be a tedious task if you limit yourself to browsing through all of your folders. That task becomes doubly difficult if you’re trying to find Word and Excel files simultaneously. To make this task easier, try using the “OR” operator in the Windows 7 search tool.
Windows Computers
1.Click the Windows Start button to launch the Start menu.
2.Enter the name of the file you’re looking for in the search box. If you don’t know the name of the file or files you’re looking for, but instead want to bring up all of your Word and Excel files, use the “OR” search operator. Type “DOC OR XLS OR DOCX OR XLSX” to bring up all Word and Excel files stored on your computer.
3.Scroll through the search results and double-click your documents to open them in their respective applications.
Tips
- Word and Excel used the DOC and XLS file extensions, respectively, by default from 1997 until 2004. From 2004 onward, Microsoft made DOCX and XLSX the default file extensions. If you know for certain that your business only uses the latter extensions, for example, save yourself some time scrolling through search results by excluding the older extensions and searching only for 'DOCX OR XLSX.'
- If you have a rough idea of what folder your files might be stored in, save yourself additional time by navigating to that folder and using the 'OR' operator in the search box located in the top right hand of your window. Doing so narrows your search results to files stored in that folder and its subfolders.
Warning
- Because Windows changes incrementally from version to version, the terminology used to describe search tools may differ slightly from that which has been used here. Consult the documentation that came with your operating system for more information on terminology and for additional search techniques.
References (2)
About the Author
Andrew Tennyson has been writing about culture, technology, health and a variety of other subjects since 2003. He has been published in The Gazette, DTR and ZCom. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and a Master of Fine Arts in writing.
Cite this Article Choose Citation Style
Tennyson, Andrew. 'How to Find Word & Excel Documents on Your Hard Drive.' Small Business - Chron.com, http://smallbusiness.chron.com/word-excel-documents-hard-drive-40663.html. Accessed 20 October 2019.
Tennyson, Andrew. (n.d.). How to Find Word & Excel Documents on Your Hard Drive. Small Business - Chron.com. Retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/word-excel-documents-hard-drive-40663.html
Tennyson, Andrew. 'How to Find Word & Excel Documents on Your Hard Drive' accessed October 20, 2019. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/word-excel-documents-hard-drive-40663.html
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