Word codes for Find and Replace

I use Word a lot for editing text. I often import scanned text into Word, and - because importing text rarely results in clean formatting - sometimes I need to clean up the text a bit. 

That is when using Find and Replace can be very helpful. While I have written on this topic before (here), there is always something else we can add.

In that earlier post, I explained how we can find and replace a hard return (^p) for a soft return (^l), also known as a line break - thanks to McFadden (2008). However, we can also swap out non-breaking spaces using "^s", and tabs using "^t", thanks to DiggerDavey (2025). 

And if we don't know which ones of those we have, we only need toggle on the pilcrow symbol on the Word Home ribbon (¶) to see what gets replaced when we run a find and replace. We can read more on the pilcrow here.

A quick find and replace in a document can processing text faster, easier, and more accurate. 

Lovely!

Sam

References:

DiggerDavey. (2025, January 20). What is the "soft return" symbol when trying to replace it with a Hard return. Microsoft. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/what-is-the-soft-return-symbol-when-trying-to/f9232008-4e09-4cff-bde0-9638b7ba2006

McFadden, R. G. (2008, October 8). Is it possible to replace soft returns with hard returns?. https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/is-it-possible-to-replace-soft-returns-with-hard-returns.3641701/