Special Characters in Pattern Matching

If you are using the powerful pattern-matching engine in Word, you should understand that you cannot search for some special characters in the same way you do when normally searching. In normal Word searching you indicate the start of a special character by using the caret (^) followed by a character that indicates what you are searching for. For instance, ^p will search for a paragraph mark.

When pattern matching is enabled you cannot use all the special characters you normally used in searching. Instead you must use workarounds, as shown here:

Note that the workaround for endnotes and footnotes is the same. This means that you cannot differentiate between these characters when pattern matching. In addition, you cannot search for a field (^d) when using pattern matching. Searching for white space (^w) is also a little different. You must type a space (press the Space Bar) and then enter the pattern {1,}. This causes Word to search for one or more spaces.