How to find/replace bullet character in MS Word
Thread poster: Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Jun 21, 2018

Hello everyone

I have an MS Word file that contains this character:
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2022/index.htm

I need to highlight all such characters, so I need to use Find/Replace, but what should I put in the Find field?

Copy/pasting the bullet character into the Find field does not work.

Thanks
... See more
Hello everyone

I have an MS Word file that contains this character:
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2022/index.htm

I need to highlight all such characters, so I need to use Find/Replace, but what should I put in the Find field?

Copy/pasting the bullet character into the Find field does not work.

Thanks
Samuel

==

I found a way: I first saved the Word file as a plaintext file, then opened it in a text editor, then copied the character in the text editor, and then pasted it into the Find field. This causes MS Word to paste the correct character into the Find field. Copy/pasting directly from MS Word to the Find dialog results in a different character being pasted (a thick bullet instead of a thin one).


[Edited at 2018-06-21 08:48 GMT]
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Try this Jun 21, 2018

Try this (I'm using Word 2008 for Mac but it should work for all versions)

Open the find/replace window
In "Find what" enter the text you want to search for
Highlight that text
Down at the bottom of the window click on "Format" and scroll down to "style"
A "Find Style" window should open.
Scroll down and look for the style you want. Probably "List Bullet"

Then do the same for "Replace with"

Let me know if it works. I've neve
... See more
Try this (I'm using Word 2008 for Mac but it should work for all versions)

Open the find/replace window
In "Find what" enter the text you want to search for
Highlight that text
Down at the bottom of the window click on "Format" and scroll down to "style"
A "Find Style" window should open.
Scroll down and look for the style you want. Probably "List Bullet"

Then do the same for "Replace with"

Let me know if it works. I've never actually tried it...
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Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
@Tom Jun 21, 2018

Tom in London wrote:
Let me know if it works. I've never actually tried it...


I tried this, just to let you know, but this is only going to work if the bullet is in fact styled as a "list style" in the file. I did not mention this before, because I did not think it was relevant, but: in my file, the bullet appears in the middle of normal paragraph text, and not as part of a styled list.

Here's a sample:
http://www.leuce.com/tempfile/bulletwontcopy.doc

[Edited at 2018-06-21 08:54 GMT]


 
Gerard de Noord
Gerard de Noord  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 21:22
Member (2003)
English to Dutch
+ ...
Word 2016 doesn't have that problem Jun 21, 2018

Word 2016 doesn't have that problem on my PC.

bullet

Cheers,
Gerard


 
Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 20:22
Member (2008)
Italian to English
How about... Jun 21, 2018

...making all characters visible and then doing a find/replace on the characters you now see?

 
Daniel Frisano
Daniel Frisano  Identity Verified
Italy
Local time: 21:22
Member (2008)
English to Italian
+ ...
Alternative Jun 21, 2018

You can also copy the bullet from

http://www.unicode-search.net/unicode-namesearch.pl?term=2022&.submit=Search

and paste it in the Find/Replace box. Tested:

Untitled-1

Find only:

Untitled-2




[Edited at 2018-06-21 13:11 GMT]


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 21:22
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Thanks, everyone Jun 22, 2018

Thanks everyone, I'm glad this problem does not exist in Word 2016. I was using Word 2003. Pasting the exact character from e.g. a web site did not help either. The odd thing is that the character in question has a different appearance in this Word file than it would normally have when you insert this exact same character into a Word file, even with an identical style.

 


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How to find/replace bullet character in MS Word






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