However, if the page numbers are a field inserted by Word, then F&R won’t work. If typed manually, then you’d use a wildcard F&R with (\) in the Find (note: there’s a space after the period), with \2 in the Replace. inserted by Word using the ‘Insert page number’ function, or if they’ve been typed manually.
Your find/replace will depend on whether these page numbers are fields (i.e. My advice: MAKE A COPY of your document and experiment on that before deciding on a course of action. Donations to keeping this blog ad-free gratefully accepted (see the link at the top right of the page). įor the Replace: \2 - Tells Word to replace the second element of the Find with what was in the Find (i.e.
There are no spaces preceding or trailing any of these elements, or in between them, so if you copy the code from this blog post, get rid of any preceding spaces otherwise it won’t work. However, because the closing parenthesis is a special wildcard character in its own right, you need to tell Word to treat it as a normal text character and not as a special character, so you ‘escape’ it with a backslash ‘ \‘ before the ), then surround that string in square brackets. () - You need to find the closing parenthesis, so you need to enclose it in parentheses.(*%) - The represents any number from 0 to 9 the * represents any more characters immediately after that number (more numbers, or a decimal point), thus not limiting the find to only single digit numbers and the % symbol says this string of numbers found must finish with that symbol.However, because parentheses are special wildcard characters in their own right, you need to tell Word to treat them as normal text characters and not as special characters, so you put in a backslash ‘ \‘ (also known as an ‘escape’ character) before the (, AND surround this string in square brackets (otherwise, it won’t work). () - You need to find a specific character (the opening parenthesis), so you need to enclose it in parentheses.
The three elements (each is enclosed in parentheses) of the Find are: Once you’re happy that it works, repeat until you’ve replaced them all.