One of my subscribers uses Acrobat InDesign more than she uses Word, and some of the differences between the two are very frustrating for her. For instance, in InDesign, she can use Find and Replace without automatically moving to the next occurrence of what she is finding. This allows her to visually look at the replacement just made to make sure there are no problems. In Word, when she clicks Replace in the Find and Replace dialog box, Word will make the replacement but then automatically finds the next occurrence. So, if she wants to check what was just done, she has to go back to find the replacement point. This is very frustrating for her, so she wondered if there is a way to make Word not do the next find after she clicks on Replace.
Unfortunately, there is no setting or method to do this in Word; the behavior is native to InDesign, but not to Word. There is a workaround which might allow you to accomplish this but, at best, this can be very klutzy.
Follow the steps below to learn how:
- In the Find and Replace dialog box, click Replace as you normally would.
- Press your Escape key immediately which will close the Find and Replace dialog box.
- Press Shift+F5. This will cause Word to return to the place where the previous edit was performed. (The point at which the replacement was made.)
- Once you are satisfied with the replacement, press Ctrl+H, which again displays the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
- Click Find Next.
This will bring you to the next suggested replacement, where you can continue moving forward.
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