Using Word Wildcards in the Real World

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium

Are you getting the most you can from Microsoft Word? Wildcard search is one of the most powerful features in Word. You can use it to quickly find errors and make changes throughout a document in a matter of seconds. In this article, we explore real-life challenges fixed by Word wildcards.

Word Wildcard Real-Life Examples

You might be interested in seeing some of the wildcard combinations I’ve used in a few real editing projects. Maybe you’ll find them useful too.

Example 1

One manuscript I worked on had lots of parenthetical references like this:

(Thoreau, Walden, p 10.)

You’ll notice that there’s no period after the p. To fix these references, I used the following string in Microsoft Word’s “Find what” box:

p ([0-9]@.\))

That’s an odd-looking thing with its double parentheses, but its meaning becomes clear when you consider that the first closing parenthesis represents the closing parenthesis of the reference. The backslash in front of it tells Word to treat it as a character rather than the end of a group “expression.” So the whole string says this:

1. Find a "p" followed by a space.

2. Find, as a group, one or more digits followed by a period followed by a closing parenthesis.

I put this in the “Replace with” box:

p. \1

And that string says this:

1. Replace the "p" followed by a space with "p" followed by a period and a space.

2. Replace the rest of the “Find what” string (the group in parentheses) with itself.

When I was finished finding and replacing, the references looked like this:

(Thoreau, Walden, p. 10.)

Example 2

Here’s another example:

(Genesis 8:26)

You’ll notice that there’s no period before the closing parenthesis. Wanting to fix these, I put this string in the “Find what” box:

([0-9]@:[0-9]@)\)

It says:

1. Find, as a group, any number of digits followed by a colon followed by any number of digits.

2. Find a closing parenthesis character.

Put this in the “Replace with” box:

\1.)

And that string says:

1. Replace the group with itself.

2. Replace the closing parenthesis with a period and a closing parenthesis.

When I was finished finding and replacing, the references looked like this:

(Genesis 8:26.)

“Why,” you may be wondering, “did you have to use wildcards? Why didn’t you just find a closing parenthesis and replace it with a closing parenthesis and a period, like this:

Find what:

)

Replace with:

.)

We couldn’t do that because the manuscript had other parenthetical items (like this one) that didn’t need a period. Using wildcards makes it possible to find exactly the items you want and ignore those you don’t.

Example 3

The manuscript also had Bible references that looked like this:

II Corinthians

II John

II Kings

I wanted them to look like this:

2 Corinthians

2 John

2 Kings

To do that, I put this in the “Find what” box:

II ([A-Z])

That says:

1. Find “I” followed by “I” followed by a space.

2. Find any capital letter.

And I put this in the “Replace with” box:

2 \1

Which says:

1. Replace the “II” with a “2”.

2. Replace the capital letter with itself.

Worked like a charm.

“Why,” you ask, “didn’t you just replace “II” with “2” throughout the manuscript rather than use wildcards?” Well, I could have. But I was also thinking about other entries like these:

I Corinthians

I John

I Kings

Obviously, I couldn’t just replace “I” with “1” throughout the manuscript, so I used this in the “Find what” box:

I ([A-Z])

And this in the “Replace with” box:

1 \1

That took care of the problem.

I hope you’re beginning to see how powerful wildcards can be and how much time they can save while you’re editing a manuscript. Using wildcards, you can quickly fix repetitive problems that would take hours to correct by hand. I highly encourage you to try them, but I also urge you to back up your documents and experiment on some junk text before using wildcards in the “real world.” Also, try finding and replacing items individually before replacing all of them globally. Then you’ll know that the wildcards you’re using actually do what you need to have done.

Continue Your Wildcard Education: Free Download!

Ready to learn even more about Word wildcards?

Download the Wildcard Cookbook by Jack Lyon today!

In the Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word, you’ll learn how to build your own wildcard searches with detailed screenshots and instructions. You will gain the confidence you need to implement these time-saving strategies in your work. And if you love the idea of wildcards but are not ready to write your own, the Wildcard Cookbook includes real-world examples that you can simply copy and paste!