So what’s the deal with the ) Replace with: Put a checkmark in the “Use wildcards” box.Īll those multiple spaces will be replaced by a single space-in one operation!.If the “More” button is showing, click it.In the “Replace with” box, type a single space.In Word’s “Find what” box, type a single space.Display Word’s “Replace” dialog by pressing CTRL + h on your keyboard.But there is a better solution: Use wildcards. In that case, you’ll need to hit “Replace all” multiple times to clean up the problem. Or, worse, the professor has used multiple spaces to indent paragraphs or do other kinds of formatting. Unless, as often happens, old Professor Griggs has been sloppy and sometimes used three spaces in a row. Turning two spaces into one is easy enough: just put two spaces in Microsoft Word’s “Find what” box, one space in the “Replace with” box, and hit the “Replace all” button. Those of us who learned to type on an actual typewriter were taught to put two spaces between each sentence, supposedly to help with readability, and there are still plenty of academics who cling to that outmoded practice.

Wildcard Search #1: Replacing Double Spaces In fact, I’m going to give you seven easy wildcard searches you can use right now to help clean up that manuscript and beat that deadline. Using wildcards is not as hard as you might think. If only you knew how to use wildcard find and replace! But now that deadline is looming, and there’s still a lot of work ahead. Your anguished cry rings out in the middle of the night: “Why, oh why, did I accept this stupid freelance job?” You know the answer: The client offered you twice as much money as you’d ordinarily get for a job like this because the deadline is tight.

Microsoft word find and replace mac