Search in Word document for markings with a specific colour

Marked how? There are only 16/15 "highlight" colors.

Word isn't setup to search for specific Highlight colors, just anything highlighted

Search for Font Color

In the Find/Replace dialog box you can search for specific font colors:

In the Find/Replace dialog box you can search for specific font colors:

·      In the "Find What" I put an *  (find any char wildcard)

·      turn on the "Use Wildcards" Search Option

·      Click on “More” button/ “Format” button / “Font…” option / “Font Color” drop down list / select the color of font you want to search for

·      under the "Find What:" (or "Replace with:") input boxes you will see comments noting search conditions, such as: "Format: Font color: Red"

·      OK back to Find dialog, click on “Find Next”

**NOTE:**When you are done searching for specific formatting, before closing the Find and Replace dialog box make a point of clicking on the "No Formatting" button at the bottom of the "More" section.  This clears all formatting conditions your applied to the "Find what:" or "Replace with:" (depending on which one your insert pointer is sitting in at the time you click the button). 

I find it best to clear the formatting before exiting the dialog because it is too easy to miss the indicators when you start the next search.  If you don't clear them you will get "not found" message on text you are positive is there, until you notice and clear the formatting conditions.

Too bad MS has not yet seen fit to update the code responsible for highlighting to allow searching by color (and to handle more than the 15 colors allowed back in Word for DOS 1.0 in the 1980's!).  In the Find dialog box you can only search for text that has highlighting applied, but you cannot search for specific highlight colors.

PS: I tested this approach in Word 2007 and it works there too.

This isn't quite what you want, but you may find some part of it you can adapt.

Changing Character Color

http://wordribbon.tips.net/T011070_Finding_Text_Not_Using_a_Particular_Font.html

by *Allen Wyatt* (last updated September 10, 2011)

Imagine that you are developing a document that uses text colors to signal special meanings to the reader. For instance, you may use red text to indicate what the user should type. If you are developing a document in which you use color within your text, it can be a real bother to use the menus over and over again to change text colors. In such an instance, it is helpful to have a macro that modifies the color automatically. You can assign the macro to a key combination or a toolbar button so you don't have to use the menus. The following macro changes the color of the currently selected text to red.

Changing All Text of a Particular Color

https://wordribbon.tips.net/T006858_Changing_All_Text_of_a_Particular_Color.html

Need to change the color of some text in your document? This tip discusses three different ways you can approach the task to make short work of the change.

**Reversing Type******http://wordribbon.tips.net/T011971_Reversing_Type.html

Most text appears black on white, not white on black. If you want to change this so that your type is reversed, here's a quick way to do it.

If you are dealing with font colors, I have a couple more other articles that may give you ideas.

Thank you for your help!

Sadly what I want isn't possible.

It will be a good feature for students to use.

Thanks a lot!

Coloured text? Coloured shapes? Coloured background? More details, please.

We're getting there. Highlights are different from background colors. Highlights are set by  clicking on the Home>Font>Highlight tool and choosing a color. Background color is set by choosing Home>Paragraph>Borders and Shading>Shading, selecting a color and applying it to the paragraph or text selection.

I'll assume you're actually using Highlights, since those are easier to apply. Word's find and Replace utility can find highlighted text, but it can't find highlights of a particular color. To do that, you'll need a VBA macro:

Sub FindByHighlightColor()

  With Selection.Find

    .ClearFormatting

    .Replacement.ClearFormatting

    .Text = ""

    .MatchWildcards = False

    .Forward = True

    .Wrap = wdFindContinue

    .Highlight = True

    Do

      .Execute

    Loop Until Selection.Range.HighlightColorIndex = wdYellow Or Not .Found

    Selection.Range.Select

  End With

End Sub

If you create a macro for each highlight color, you can quickly find text highlighted in any of the standard colors. Please post again if you need help implementing this.

highlights/ background color of words or sentences.