Friday, August 21, 2015

Wildcards

Seek and find


When you are looking for a particular word or file, wildcards can be used to refine the search.

An asterisk (*) can be used to represent any number of characters. A search for pop* would return popsicle, popcorn, pop1, pop2, pop37, pop29, and pop's favorite chair.

A question mark (?) is a stand-in for a single character. Popc??? would bring back only the word popcorn. Pop? searches for pop1 and pop2, but not pop37 etc.

That's a simple look at wildcards. Word has a rich variety of symbols that can do quite complex search and replace operations.

Here are some links to more detailed discussions:

Word MVP:
Using Wildcards

Felgall Pty Ltd:
Sydney, AustraliaWildcard information

Graham Mayor:
Find and Replace


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