Aug 29, 2013 - I'm a whizz on Windows but sadly not at all on MAC. I have this repetitive task that I have to find and replace words in Word documents.
11Click OK when the find-and-replace is done. As long as you set things up carefully, searching and replacing text formatting is a quick and easy way to spiff up a boring document. To replace one format with another, such as underline with italic, be sure to leave the Find What and Replace With text boxes empty. That way, only the text formatting is replaced. An easier way to update formatting in a document is to use and apply styles.
Don’t forget about the No Formatting button! You need to click it if you want to change the formats or replace text without paying attention to formats.
Going back a few decades ago, one of the first functions I found delightful in a word processor was search and replace. Search for a word, sentence, phrase, or whatever, and replace it.
Search and replace made fixing documents far easier than digging into each page. How would you do a search and replace on other documents? Or, more than one document at a time? Actually, it’s easy with the right app.
Here’s the right one. Search and replace is a time honored function that has roots back to the last century. Unix users could do all kinds of searches– and replacement– from the command line.
Does the same thing across multiple files from different applications. Select the files to search, enter the string to find and a string to replace.
Look at how easy this is. Easy peasy, right? Select the folder of files. Enter the Patten and the Search string. Enter a Replace string. TextSweep lists the number of files that match the Pattern and Search. It also displays where the Replace string would go.
Replace in a single file or replace in hundreds of files. This kind of search and replace is far faster than using a word processor or a specific app to open one file at a time. TextSweep sweeps the directory of files, searches through each one, and delivers a list of files that match the criteria. The app highlights all the search and replace terms in the display list of files. Spotlight on the Mac does something similar, but not as fast, and not as effective as TextSweep. A number of Mac text editors– BBEdit is a good example– can also search and replace text strings across multiple files but are more complicated to use than TextSweep. What kind of files?
Usually text files, but your mileage may vary as not all files are created equal. The app works on both macOS and Windows and comes with a 30 day trial period. Nicely done and priced about right. If you need a slightly geekier search, find, and replace, comes with regex support.