Execute Method (Find Object)

See Also         Example         Applies To

Runs the specified find operation. Returns True if the find operation is successful.

Syntax

expression.Execute(FindText, MatchCase, MatchWholeWord, MatchWildcards, MatchSoundsLike, MatchAllWordForms, Forward, Wrap, Format, ReplaceWith, Replace, MatchKashida, MatchDiacritics, MatchAlefHamza, MatchControl)

expression   Required. An expression that returns a Find object.

FindText   Optional Variant. The text to be searched for. Use an empty string ("") to search for formatting only. You can search for special characters by specifying appropriate character codes. For example, "^p" corresponds to a paragraph mark and "^t" corresponds to a tab character.

If MatchWildcards is True, you can specify wildcard characters and other advanced search criteria. For example, "*(ing)" finds any word that ends in "ing."

To search for a symbol character, type a caret (^),a zero (0), and then the symbol's character code. For example, "^0151" corresponds to an em dash (—).

MatchCase   Optional Variant. True to specify that the find text be case sensitive. Corresponds to the Match case check box in the Find and Replace dialog box (Edit menu).

MatchWholeWord   Optional Variant. True to have the find operation locate only entire words, not text that's part of a larger word. Corresponds to the Find whole words only check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.

MatchWildcards   Optional Variant. True to have the find text be a special search operator. Corresponds to the Use wildcards check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.

MatchSoundsLike   Optional Variant. True to have the find operation locate words that sound similar to the find text be. Corresponds to the Sounds like check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.

MatchAllWordForms   Optional Variant. True to have the find operation locate all forms of the find text (for example, "sit" locates "sitting" and "sat"). Corresponds to the Find all word forms check box in the Find and Replace dialog box.

Forward   Optional Variant. True to search forward (toward the end of the document).

Wrap   Optional Variant. Controls what happens if the search begins at a point other than the beginning of the document and the end of the document is reached (or vice versa if Forward is set to False). This argument also controls what happens if there's a selection or range and the search text isn't found in the selection or range. Can be one of the following WdFindWrap constants.

Constant Description
wdFindAsk After searching the selection or range, Microsoft Word displays a message asking whether to search the remainder of the document.
wdFindContinue The find operation continues if the beginning or end of the search range is reached.
wdFindStop The find operation ends if the beginning or end of the search range is reached.

Format   Optional Variant. True to have the find operation locate formatting in addition to or instead of the find text.

ReplaceWith   Optional Variant. The replacement text. To delete the text specified by the Find argument, use an empty string (""). You specify special characters and advanced search criteria just as you do for the Find argument. To specify a graphic object or other nontext item as the replacement, put the item on the Clipboard and specify "^c" for ReplaceWith.

Replace   Optional Variant. Specifies how many replacements are to be made: one, all, or none. Can be one of the following WdReplace constants: wdReplaceAll, wdReplaceNone, or wdReplaceOne.

MatchKashida   Optional Variant. True if find operations match text with matching kashidas in an Arabic language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you’ve selected or installed.

MatchDiacritics   Optional Variant. True if find operations match text with matching diacritics in a right-to-left language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you’ve selected or installed.

MatchAlefHamza   Optional Variant. True if find operations match text with matching Alef Hamzas in an Arabic language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you’ve selected or installed.

MatchControl   Optional Variant. True if find operations match text with matching bidirectional control characters in a right-to-left language document. This argument may not be available to you, depending on the language support (U.S. English, for example) that you’ve selected or installed.

Remarks

Unless otherwise specified, replacement text inherits the formatting of the text it replaces in the document. For example, if you replace the string "abc" with "xyz," occurrences of "abc" with bold formatting are replaced with the string "xyz" with bold formatting.

Also, if MatchCase is False, occurrences of the search text that are uppercase will be replaced with an uppercase version of the replacement text regardless of the case of the search and replacement text. Using the previous example, occurrences of "ABC" are replaced with "XYZ."