How to find and replace
- Paste your text into the top box.
- Type the word you want to change in Find, and the new word in Replace with.
- Tick any options you need. The result updates as you type and tells you how many replacements were made.
- Copy the result.
Handy regex patterns
Tick Use regex to use these. Copy the pattern into Find and the replacement into Replace with.
| What it does | Find | Replace with |
|---|---|---|
| Remove all numbers | \d+ | (empty) |
| Put each word on its own line | \s+ | \n |
| Add a bullet to every line | ^ | • |
| Remove HTML tags | <[^>]+> | (empty) |
| Swap "Last, First" to "First Last" | (\w+), (\w+) | $2 $1 |
| Remove empty lines | ^\s*\n | (empty) |
In regex mode, ^ and $ match the start and end of every line, so patterns like the bullet example work on the whole list at once.
Everyday examples
- Update a product name across a long description after a rebrand.
- Change "colour" to "color" when switching between British and American spelling.
- Replace a placeholder like [NAME] with a real name in a template letter.
- Swap commas for semicolons when preparing data for a CSV import.