Using Word’s Find Options

When tagging (or replacing) characters or other text (but not formatting), you can use Word’s basic Find options just as you can with Word’s regular Find feature. These options are:

1. Match Case.

2. Find Whole Words Only.

3. Use Pattern Matching (Use Wildcards).

4. Sounds Like.

To use these options, add a plus sign and a code letter (in lowercase) to the end of each find and replace entry. The code letter is the same as the letter used in Word 95’s Find dialog box to select these options:

“c” for Match Case.

“w” for Find Whole Words Only.

“&” for Match Case and Find Whole Words Only at the same time.

“m” for Pattern Matching (Use Wildcards).

“l” for Sounds Like.

You can use only one of these options per entry. Such entries might look like this:

Department|department+c

per|according to+w

p ([0-9]@.\))|p. \1+m

You’ll notice that we’re replacing full words here, and RazzmaTag is fully capable of doing that, or even of replacing longer text strings. However, RazzmaTag doesn’t include the ability to approve each replacement manually, because it’s designed primarily for tagging text. If you need to find and replace lots of text strings and need to approve replacements manually as you go, our MegaReplacer program will do the job.

Please note that because RazzmaTag uses the pipe symbol and the plus sign as delimiters, it cannot find or replace text that includes the pipe symbol or the plus sign. Also, be aware that with RazzmaTag, you can’t use Word’s Find options to do anything you couldn’t ordinarily do when searching manually. For example, using Word’s Find feature manually, you can try searching a document for a carriage return (^p) with “Use Pattern Matching” turned on. If you do, Word will give you an error message. RazzmaTag won’t give you an error message, but it also won’t find the carriage return. In effect, it will simply ignore that find-and-replace entry. Similarly, if you put several words separated by spaces in Word’s “Find What” box, the “Find Whole Words Only” option is unavailable. This is also true with RazzmaTag, even though you can’t see that it is unavailable. If you have any questions about whether a find-and-replace entry will work with a certain option, you should try it manually in Word. If it won’t work that way, it won’t work with RazzmaTag, either.