So much of life is about who’s in your set. Word’s wildcards are really no different. Most of us have a ‘crowd’ that we feel some sort of affinity with. Professional groups, special interests; type of food or music we like; and so on.

The GPO Style Manual, last updated in 2016, is the official guide to the form and style of the U.S. Government Publishing Office. The electronic version is free to download. Although designed for use in Federal Government printing and publishing, the GPO Style Manual is relied upon by writers and editors both within and outside the Federal Government.

Your anguished cry rings out in the middle of the night: “Why, oh why, did I accept this stupid freelance job?” You know the answer: The client offered you twice as much money as you’d ordinarily get for a job like this because the deadline is tight. But now that deadline is looming, and there’s still a lot of work ahead. If only you knew how to use wildcard find and replace!

[First of all, if you're working under a deadline, I recommend adding PerfectIt to MS Word to check for brackets and quotes left open (and much more), quickly.] Now, onto the topic at hand: How to find a parenthesis symbol ( in a wildcard search in Word.