Proofreading Find and Replace Checklist

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​When proofreading, you can save yourself some time by using the find and replace feature to catch common formatting issues. Use the following checklist to ensure your work is as clean as possible.

For a formatting starting point, click here to grab your free Editing Kit, which includes a standard formatting template.

1. Double Spaces
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Although double spaces after sentences were once the standard, that is no longer the case. Eliminate extra spaces by searching for two spaces and replacing it with one. You may need to run the search multiple times to catch instances of triple spaces.

2. Spaces After Paragraphs
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It's easy to hit space before the return key and wind up with extra spaces after your paragraphs. Catching these extra spaces can be a bear, but with Microsoft Word's wildcards, the process becomes simple.

Run the following search (not including quotation marks).

Find: "^p "
Replace: "^p"

​The ^p is the wildcard standing for paragraph break. So this search finds hard returns followed by a space and replaces them with only a hard return.

Note that you will want to either run the search for multiple spaces first or run this search multiple times, in case you have double or triple spaces after your paragraphs.
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3. Spaces Before Paragraphs
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To find and remove spaces before paragraphs, you use the same method as above, with the space before the wildcard instead of after.

Find: " ^p"
Replace: "^p"
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Straight Quotes
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Quotation marks may be straight ("dumb") or curly ("smart").

​Standard manuscript format calls for smart quotes. If you're working Microsoft Word, you can enable smart quotes by selecting Tools - Autocorrect Options - AutoFormat As You Type. Then check the box labeled "Straight quotes" with "smart quotes."

To replace all straight quotes in a document with smart quotes, simply follow the above steps to enable smart quotes. Then in the Find and Replace dialogue box, search for double quotation marks (") and replace them with the same symbol. Word will automatically format them as smart quotes.

​Note that single quotation marks and apostrophes can also be straight or smart. Consider apostrophes used in contractions.

Again, smart quotes are the standard. Enable and replace smart single quotes using the same steps you used for double quotation marks.

Click here to learn more about using quotation marks.
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4. Bold
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Standard manuscript formatting includes no bolded text. To remove any bold that may have sneaked into your manuscript, go to advanced find and replace.

Expand the dialogue box with the button in the lower left corner. Under replace format, select font. Then select bold.
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For the replace with option, select font again. But this time select not bold. All of your bold text will be replaced with unbolded text.
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5. Placeholders
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If you use placeholders when you write, such as brackets or asterisks, be sure to run a search for those symbols. For example, when I can't come up with a word while drafting, I will often place a reminder in brackets. This way I can keep my momentum and address the issue during editing.

But no one wants to see leftover [brackets] in the final draft, so using find and replace can help catch those placeholders early and efficiently.

Using Find and Replace While Proofreading
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Using the find and replace tool can help you cut down on the time you spend looking for simple, repetitive formatting errors. I like to run these searches before and after each proofreading pass.

Have you used find and replace to supplement your proofreading? What useful searches did I leave out? Let me know in the comments!

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