Find and Replace in Multiple Word Documents?

That would be quite a trick! Could you do that in the Windows version?

Command+space to Spotlight, find and run 'Automator'

Make a new workflow.

Add these actions (you can search for them by name):

- Get Specified Finder Items
- Open Word Documents
- Find and Replace Text in Word Documents
- Save Word Documents
- Close Word Documents

Set the options for which files to get and what to find and replace.

Click Run. You should see the documents popping up and changing.

These instructions worked great for me for individual word replacement on 1200+ documents. Thanks for that!

Now how about for adding/replacing large amounts of text (a few paragraphs) to multiple documents? Using this string of automators only causes an error when I try this. Any suggestions?

micropig said:

Command+space to Spotlight, find and run 'Automator'

Make a new workflow.

Add these actions (you can search for them by name):

- Get Specified Finder Items
- Open Word Documents
- Find and Replace Text in Word Documents
- Save Word Documents
- Close Word Documents

Set the options for which files to get and what to find and replace.

Click Run. You should see the documents popping up and changing.

Click to expand...

jacory said:

These instructions worked great for me for individual word replacement on 1200+ documents. Thanks for that!

Now how about for adding/replacing large amounts of text (a few paragraphs) to multiple documents? Using this string of automators only causes an error when I try this. Any suggestions?

Click to expand...

I tried to setup the Automator as described above, but there doesn't seem to be an action for Open Word Documents or Find and Replace Text in Word Documents available in the list of options. Did you have to add anything to get these actions?

Thanks,
Bob

remerick said:

I tried to setup the Automator as described above, but there doesn't seem to be an action for Open Word Documents or Find and Replace Text in Word Documents available in the list of options. Did you have to add anything to get these actions?

Thanks,
Bob

Click to expand...

Well, after playing with Automator for quite a while, I was able to patch something together. It only works properly 100% of the time if ALL documents are identical in the area you are adding the text. There is a find & replace text command, as well as open doc, save doc, close doc. But the find & replace only allows a certain amount of characters. So what I did was chose the section where I wanted the insert as the "find" (as many words as necessary to make it unique in the location so the insert places ONLY in that one location), in the "replace, I put that phrase again + the new text. If it was too long, I used another find & replace and repeated that same method.

So the commands I used were:
1. get specified folder items
2. get folder contents
3. open word documents
4. find and replace text in word documents
5. find and replace text in word documents
6. find and replace text in word documents
7. save word documents
8. close word documents

remerick said:

I tried to setup the Automator as described above, but there doesn't seem to be an action for Open Word Documents or Find and Replace Text in Word Documents available in the list of options. Did you have to add anything to get these actions?

Thanks,
Bob

Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't answer your question there, at first glance i thought you were asking if I had any luck with what i was trying to do. Those command options should definitely be in there. I'm using Automator version 2.5

Thank you so much for this!!!

You are a life-saver....it works perfectly and for me, it will be a way to speed up my work as a translator, changing all the 'common terms' on several docs at the time. I knew there was a way!

micropig said:

Command+space to Spotlight, find and run 'Automator'

Make a new workflow.

Add these actions (you can search for them by name):

- Get Specified Finder Items
- Open Word Documents
- Find and Replace Text in Word Documents
- Save Word Documents
- Close Word Documents

Set the options for which files to get and what to find and replace.

Click Run. You should see the documents popping up and changing.

Click to expand...

THIS WAS AMAZING!!!! SAVED ME HOURS AT MY SUMMER INTERNSHIP. THANKS GUYS.

I need to search-and-replace in over 54,000 old .doc files. Is there a way to open/s+r/save/close the files one (1) at a time instead of opening all selected .docs windows/files at once?

jacory said:

Well, after playing with Automator for quite a while, I was able to patch something together. It only works properly 100% of the time if ALL documents are identical in the area you are adding the text. There is a find & replace text command, as well as open doc, save doc, close doc. But the find & replace only allows a certain amount of characters. So what I did was chose the section where I wanted the insert as the "find" (as many words as necessary to make it unique in the location so the insert places ONLY in that one location), in the "replace, I put that phrase again + the new text. If it was too long, I used another find & replace and repeated that same method.

So the commands I used were:
1. get specified folder items
2. get folder contents
3. open word documents
4. find and replace text in word documents
5. find and replace text in word documents
6. find and replace text in word documents
7. save word documents
8. close word documents

Click to expand...

Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

Gee, I'm sure glad that I came here for help. Not.

micropig said:

Command+space to Spotlight, find and run 'Automator'

Make a new workflow.

Add these actions (you can search for them by name):

- Get Specified Finder Items
- Open Word Documents
- Find and Replace Text in Word Documents
- Save Word Documents
- Close Word Documents

Set the options for which files to get and what to find and replace.

Click Run. You should see the documents popping up and changing.

Click to expand...

This works a treat for me. It doesn't replace the old "Find/Replace In All Documents" that was in Word 2008, but as a batch processor it's first class. Thank you.

jacory said:

Sorry, didn't answer your question there, at first glance i thought you were asking if I had any luck with what i was trying to do. Those command options should definitely be in there. I'm using Automator version 2.5

Click to expand...

Those automator actions came as part of Office 2011. Office 2016 does not include them. If you can install the full version of office 2011 (not Home and Student version), you can use them with Office 2016. Most of them still work fine.