

So, for example, if you’re a teacher and want students to use active voice instead of passive voice, you could use this RegEx pattern to search for every instance of passive voice in the document: \b((be(en)?)|(w(as|ere))|(is)|(a(er|m)))(.+(en|ed))(|\.) At first glance, it may seem overly complicated to use RegEx when you can just type in the word, but RegEx opens up a whole new world of search capabilities.įor example, not only can you search for specific words or phrases using RegEx, but you can also search for grammar rules, such as passive voice. Regular Expression, often referred to as RegEx, is a sequence of letters, numbers, and special characters that represents a specific search query. For example, if you search for resume, it would still find résumé if this option is selected. Ignore Latin Diacritics: This ignores latin diacritics in your search.Match Using Regular Expression: This allows you to use RegEx in addition to normal words or phrases in your search.For example, if you type Bear, it will not find any instance of bear. Match Case: This makes the word or phrase entered in the Find box case sensitive.There are also a couple of options in Find and Replace to narrow your search down even further:

Or, you can replace the currently-selected word by clicking “Replace.” You can navigate between each instance of the word in Google Docs by clicking the “Previous” or “Next” buttons. You can replace every instance of that word in the document by clicking the “Replace All” button at the bottom of the window. In the Find and Replace window, search for the word you want to find by typing it in the text box next to “Find,” and then type the word you’d like to replace it with in the “Replace With” text box. You can do this by clicking the three dots to the right of the search box, by going to Edit > Search and Replace, or by pressing Ctrl+H (Command+H on Mac). Now if you want to replace a word with another word, you’ll need to open the Find and Replace tool. You can click the up or down arrow to the right of the search box to navigate between the instances the word or phrase appears in the document. The current instance of the word that you’re on is highlighted in dark green, whereas the other instances of the word are highlighted in light green. If there are multiple instances of that word in the document, Google Docs will highlight which instance of that word you are currently on in the order it appears in the document. The number of times that word or phrase appears in the document is displayed to the right. Note that the search isn’t case-sensitive. Type the word or phrase you want to search for in the Search box. To simply search for text, press Ctrl+F (Command+F on Mac), and the Search box will appear in the top-right corner of the window. Google Docs takes it one step further and even allows you to replace that text with other text using the Find and Replace feature.įirst, launch any browser on your desktop and then open the Google Docs document that has text in it. Searching for text, as the name implies, allows you to quickly locate text within a document. Search for Words in Google Docs on Desktop A Note on Regular Expression (RegEx) Search for Text in Google Docs on Mobile Search for Words in Google Docs on Desktop
