Word Find and Replace

Question

I need help with WORD "Find and Replace", please. In my large document, I want to replace the word "January" with "-January" (and the same for February, March, etc.) I have made some of the replacements manually. Now, I am trying to find the remaining entries of "January" so that I can change them all to "-January." However, when I use Find and Replace to search the document for "January," it includes all the entries for "January" AND all entries for "-January." How can I make Find and Replace search for "January" but exclude entries for "-January"? I will appreciate help.

Answer 1

The simplest would be to do two Replace operations. The first would clear your manual changes. The second would change everything to your desired entry.

That is, Replace "-January" with "January" then replace "January" with "-January"

Otherwise, you could use the Replace button and Next button to manually skip ones you do not need to replace.

Third option, Replace (all) "January" with "-January"

Then Replace (all) "--January" with "-January"

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If you have no intentional instances of -- in your document, you could simply do the replaces for the twelve months replacing all. This will give you some with two dashes.

Replace "--" with "-" after you have done all months.

Question, are all instances of the months that you have not manually changed preceded by a single specific character? If so, you could include that in your replaces.