How to Search for Text in Word Documents

Microsoft gives users different options for searching text in Word documents. Though the feature does a decent job in searching text inside a document, their solution to search in multiple documents using Windows Search/Windows Explorer still leaves much to be desired. A good third-party app could help in this situation.

This article will lay out some step-by-step guides on how to search for text in Word documents using some built-in features of Microsoft Word, Windows Explorer, and a third-party app called WinFindr. Keep reading to find out which option suits you the most.

How to search for text in a Word document

Searching for text inside a Word document is simple and straightforward because Microsoft Word has a decent built-in search feature. Here’s how you can use it:

• Open the Word document where you want to search for text.
• Make sure that you’re in the Editing view. You can switch your view by clicking the drop-down on the upper-right corner of your Word document.

• You can head over to the search box on the top of the page to access the search Navigation pane.

• Alternatively, you can click the “Home” tab > click the arrow under the “Editing” menu > click “Find” to access the search Navigation pane.

• Otherwise, you can use the keyboard shortcut Control (Ctrl) + F to open the search Navigation pane.
• A new Navigation pane will appear on the left side of the document. Type in your search term in the search box.
• Word will highlight the search results within your Word document.

Bear in mind that the above option is great for simple text searches in a Word document. If you want to access more advanced search options, you can do the following:

• In the same document, click inside the search box > select Find & Select > select Advanced Find…

• Alternatively, you can use the Alt + Q shortcut key or select the “Home” tab > click the dropdown arrow under the “Editing” menu > click the arrow next to “Find” > select Advanced Find…

• A new Find and Replace pop-up will appear. Click the “More >>” button.

• The pop-up will expand and it’ll display various advanced search options you can choose from, including wildcard characters, special formatting, partial match, and so on.

How to search for text in Word documents

There are two ways you can try to search for text in multiple Word documents: searching using Windows Explorer and using a third-party app such as WinFindr. Here’s how.

Searching using Windows Explorer

Windows 10

Here’s how you can search for text in Word documents using Windows Explorer on Windows 10:

• Open Windows Explorer.
• Open the folders where the Word documents are located.
• Click “View” > click the dropdown arrow under the “Options” menu > select “Change folder and search options”.

• In the new Folder Options window, select the Search tab.
• Tick the “Always search file names and contents” option > click the “OK” button.

• This will prompt Windows to perform search indexing.
• After the search indexing process finishes, you can begin searching for text in the Windows Explorer search bar.

Windows 11

Here’s how you can search for text in multiple Word documents using Windows Explorer on Windows 11:

• Open Windows Explorer.
• Open the folders where the Word documents are located.
• Click the triple dots on the upper-right corner > select “Options”.

• In the new Folder Options window, select the Search tab.
• Tick the “Always search file names and contents” option > click the “OK” button.

• This will prompt Windows to perform search indexing.
• After the search indexing process finishes, you can begin searching for text in the Windows Explorer search bar.

Bear in mind that Windows Explorer’s search functionality still doesn’t work very well, especially in the case where you need to search for text within multiple documents. It’s slow, most of the time it won’t work, and in the case where it does work, you won’t be able to see the texts found. Windows Explorer also doesn’t support searching more than one search term.

Searching using WinFindr

Third-party apps or external search tools such as WinFindr can be a better approach to searching for text in multiple documents. Here’s how you can perform a document search using WinFindr:

• Run WinFindr.
• Type in the search terms in the search box; WinFindr supports searching more than one search term, so you can even create a list of search terms there.
• Select the types of items you want to search, whether you want to search in the most common paths or specific paths, and the type of natural search.
• Under the “File search settings” menu, tick the box next to “Search for files based on their content > tick the box next to “Search inside doc documents” > click the “Start” button.

• Wait for the search in progress.

• When it’s done, WinFindr will display the file(s) containing the search terms you’re looking for in the previous step.

Conclusion

There are different ways for you to search for text in Word documents. You can use built-in search features from Windows or a third-party app like WinFindr.

While using the built-in search feature is fairly easy and won’t require you to download any new app, its functionality is still fairly limited, especially if you’re looking for text inside multiple Word documents. For advanced searches like this, WinFindr is a better alternative.

WinFindr supports searching with normal search words, file masks (wildcards), and regular expressions, all at the same time. It also supports negative search terms, allowing you to skip any data.

Aside from searching inside Microsoft Word documents, WinFindr also supports OpenOffice Odt documents and text-based PDF files. You can visit its page to see the full features of WinFindr.

You can download WinFindr for free as a Portable or Setup version from here: https://winfindr.com/

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