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Find.Execute method (Word)

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Runs the specified find operation. Returns True if the find operation is successful. Boolean.

Syntax

expression.Execute (FindText, MatchCase, MatchWholeWord, MatchWildcards, MatchSoundsLike, MatchAllWordForms, Forward, Wrap, Format, ReplaceWith, Replace, MatchKashida, MatchDiacritics, MatchAlefHamza, MatchControl)

expression Required. A variable that represents a Find object.

Parameters

Name Required/Optional Data type Description
FindText Optional Variant The text to be searched for. Use an empty string ("") to search for formatting only. You can search for special characters by specifying appropriate character codes. For example, "^p" corresponds to a paragraph mark and "^t" corresponds to a tab character.
MatchCase Optional Variant True to specify that the find text be case-sensitive. Corresponds to the Match case check box in the Find and Replace dialog box (Edit menu).
MatchWholeWord Optional Variant True to have the find operation locate only entire words, not text that is part of a larger word. Corresponds to the Find whole words only check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
MatchWildcards Optional Variant True to have the find text be a special search operator. Corresponds to the Use wildcards check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
MatchSoundsLike Optional Variant True to have the find operation locate words that sound similar to the find text. Corresponds to the Sounds like check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
MatchAllWordForms Optional Variant True to have the find operation locate all forms of the find text (for example, "sit" locates "sitting" and "sat"). Corresponds to the Find all word forms check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
Forward Optional Variant True to search forward (toward the end of the document).
Wrap Optional Variant Controls what happens if the search begins at a point other than the beginning of the document and the end of the document is reached (or vice versa if Forward is set to False). This argument also controls what happens if there is a selection or range and the search text is not found in the selection or range. Can be one of the WdFindWrap constants.
Format Optional Variant True to have the find operation locate formatting in addition to, or instead of, the find text.
ReplaceWith Optional Variant The replacement text. To delete the text specified by the Find argument, use an empty string (""). You specify special characters and advanced search criteria just as you do for the Find argument. To specify a graphic object or other nontext item as the replacement, move the item to the Clipboard and specify "^c" for ReplaceWith.
Replace Optional Variant Specifies how many replacements are to be made: one, all, or none. Can be any WdReplace constant.
MatchKashida Optional Variant True if find operations match text with matching kashidas in an Arabic-language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you have selected or installed.
MatchDiacritics Optional Variant True if find operations match text with matching diacritics in a right-to-left language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you have selected or installed.
MatchAlefHamza Optional Variant True if find operations match text with matching alef hamzas in an Arabic-language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you have selected or installed.
MatchControl Optional Variant True if find operations match text with matching bidirectional control characters in a right-to-left language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you have selected or installed.
MatchPrefix Optional Variant True to match words beginning with the search string. Corresponds to the Match prefix check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
MatchSuffix Optional Variant True to match words ending with the search string. Corresponds to the Match suffix check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
MatchPhrase Optional Variant True ignores all white space and control characters between words.
IgnoreSpace Optional Variant True ignores all white space between words. Corresponds to the Ignore white-space characters check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.
IgnorePunct Optional Variant True ignores all punctuation characters between words. Corresponds to the Ignore punctuation check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.

Return value

Boolean

Remarks

If MatchWildcards is True, you can specify wildcard characters and other advanced search criteria for the FindText argument. For example, "*(ing)" finds any word that ends in "ing".

To search for a symbol character, type a caret (^), a zero (0), and then the symbol's character code. For example, "^0151" corresponds to an em dash (—).

Unless otherwise specified, replacement text inherits the formatting of the text it replaces in the document. For example, if you replace the string "abc" with "xyz", occurrences of "abc" with bold formatting are replaced with the string "xyz" with bold formatting.

Also, if MatchCase is False, occurrences of the search text that are uppercase will be replaced with an uppercase version of the replacement text, regardless of the case of the replacement text. Using the previous example, occurrences of "ABC" are replaced with "XYZ".

Example

This example finds and selects the next occurrence of the word "library".

With Selection.Find 
    .ClearFormatting 
    .MatchWholeWord = True 
    .MatchCase = False 
    .Execute FindText:="library" 
End With

This example finds all occurrences of the word "hi" in the active document and replaces each occurrence with "hello".

Set myRange = ActiveDocument.Content 
myRange.Find.Execute FindText:="hi", _ 
    ReplaceWith:="hello", Replace:=wdReplaceAll

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