MS Word – Find Text, Replace with Clipboard Contents

Here's a useful tip that can help in a variety of situations.

• Scenario 1: You want to replace a string of text with a graphic (maybe replace the company's name with a graphic version of it, or want to replace a mathematics formula with a PNG graphic of it so that it will not be changed across mobile devices.
• Scenario 2: You want to find and replace a string of text that has formatting in it, like a subscript or superscript (H2S = H₂S, or 1st = 1^st).

Here's a way to quickly do that.

1. In the word doc (or elsewhere) find the thing you want to copy (graphic, properly formatted text, whatever).
2. Copy it (CTRL+C, or from the menu).
3. Use the Find/Replace command in MS Word (CTRL+H)
4. In the Find What field, enter the string of text you want to find.
5. In the Replace with field, enter this: ^c (the first character is found by typing SHIFT+6).
6. Now, whenever you use the find/replace, it will paste the contents of your clipboard.

HOW IT WORKS: This technique replaces whatever you are searching for with whatever you have in the clipboard.

That's it. A very simple solution to an annoying problem.