[dba-Tech] Word Replace with wildcard

Rocky Smolin rockysmolin2 at gmail.com
Thu Apr 1 10:48:15 CDT 2021


Yeah, really worked well in DOS for file searches.  But that was in the
previous century, wasn't it?

OK- brute force alternative - assuming the doc is not a thousand pages and
there are a relatively small number of these replacements - search for 3
with a preceding space - (space)3 - and replace with (space)5, but not
global, so you stop at each occurrence of a string that has a preceding
space and starts with three. Then click Replace or Find Next.  Then if it
stops at a string of four digits - 3123 - you could bypass the replace. How
long would that take?

r

On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 8:37 AM Susan Harkins <ssharkins at gmail.com> wrote:

> No, that replaces 3xx with 5?? -- interprets ? as a literal character, not
> a
> wildcard.
>
> I saw a lot of examples online using ? but it never worked for me.
>
> Susan H.
>
>
> Does the ? serve as a wildcard? Would replace 3?? with 5?? work?
>
> r
>
> On Thu, Apr 1, 2021 at 6:16 AM Susan Harkins <ssharkins at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've run into an interesting find/replace question and I can do it
> > with two searches, but I believe it can be done in one. I should know
> > this, but for the life of me, I can't get it right. Hoping for a bit of
> help.
> >
> >
> >
> > Problem: Reader has a Word document with several three-digit numbers
> > beginning with 3. He wants to change the 3 to 5, leaving the other two
> > digits as is.
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > Susan H.
> >
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