Find and replace
This page shows you how to find a word or phrase—in the scene you're in, the chapter, or the whole book—and how to change it everywhere at once when a name or a spelling changes.
Open the find bar
Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac). A small bar floats over the top of the page, the way a browser's find does, so your text doesn't jump around. Type what you're looking for in Find, and every match lights up.
- Enter goes to the next match; Shift+Enter goes back one. The up and down arrows in the bar do the same.
- Esc closes the bar. What you typed is still there next time you open it.
Screenshot: the find bar over a scene, with a word typed, matches highlighted, and the Scene/Chapter/Book choice showing.
Where it looks
Under the search box, choose how far to look:
- Scene—just the scene or section that's open.
- Chapter—every scene in this chapter.
- Book—every scene in the book, and the front and back matter you've written.
For Chapter and Book, the matches are listed down the side, grouped by scene, with a count of how many there are and in how many places. Click one to go straight there. If there are a great many, the list shows the first 500 and says so—search for something a little more specific to see the rest.
Narrow it down
- Aa—match case, so Rose doesn't find rose.
- [ab]—whole word, so cat doesn't find catch.
Replace
Press Ctrl+H to open the bar with a second row, Replace with, or click the small arrow at the left of the bar to show it.
- Replace changes the match you're on and moves to the next.
- All (or All in chapter, or All in book) changes every match in that scope.
Replacing in the open scene works like typing: Ctrl+Z undoes it.
Replacing across the chapter or book
A replace that reaches beyond the open scene always asks first. It tells you how many matches it found, what it will change them to, and how many scenes it will touch, so you can be sure before anything happens. When it's done, a note in the bar says how many it changed.
A couple of things it leaves alone on purpose:
- Words inside text that a suggestion is striking out—that text is on its way out already.
- Anything it couldn't safely change, which it lists by name so you can look at it yourself.
When someone else is searching
Everyone on the book can find. Co-authors can replace just as you can. When an editor uses replace, their changes arrive as suggestions for you to accept or reject, like the rest of their edits. Readers see the find bar without the replace row. See Review suggestions and comments.