Microsoft Word search and replace formatting _italics_ question

Factual Questions
1

I’ve got an old, OLD document that I want to update.

The problem is that it’s using that old formatting thing where it has this kind of formatting: italics or bold

If there’s an easy way to turn italics into italics. I can’t figure it out. The best solution I can find gets me something like italics (there’s only a few cases of bold so I don’t care too much about that). I know I can then delete the _ manually but I’d prefer to avoid that since there’s a ton of legit underscores.

Does anyone have a solution?

Thanks in advance

2

In the Find and Replace dialog:

  • check the box for Use Wildcards.
  • search for the string (*).
  • in the Replace With field, enter \1.
  • in the Format menu, choose Font and select Italic.

The * represents any number of characters in a wildcard search. Putting it in parentheses is kind of like identifying it as a “variable” to Word. The \1 syntax in the Replace box means to replace the string with the first “variable” from the Find text.

3

Thank you! I’d figured out the first step (about wildcards and the _ symbol) but couldn’t get further. And I’d have never figured out the \1 part.

You just saved me hours of tedious work. I appreciate the help! :slight_smile: