What Is a Find and Replace Tool?
A find and replace tool searches for specific text or patterns within a document and substitutes them with new content. It supports both plain text matching and regular expressions, making it versatile for simple edits and complex pattern-based transformations across code, documents, and data files.
How to Use This Find and Replace Tool
- Paste your text into the input area.
- Enter the search term in the Find field.
- Enter the replacement text in the Replace With field.
- Toggle options: enable Use Regex for pattern matching, Case Insensitive to ignore letter casing, or uncheck Replace All to replace only the first match.
- Click Replace to see the result.
Key Concepts
Regular expressions (regex) are patterns that describe sets of strings. Common patterns include \d+ for numbers, \s for whitespace, and [a-z]+ for lowercase words. Capture groups () can be referenced in the replacement with $1, $2, etc. The global flag replaces all occurrences; without it, only the first match is replaced.
Frequently Asked Questions
What regex syntax is supported?
This tool uses JavaScript’s built-in RegExp engine, which supports standard regex features: character classes, quantifiers, anchors, lookaheads, lookbehinds, capture groups, and backreferences. Named groups (?<name>) are also supported.
How do I replace with a newline or tab?
In regex mode, use \n for newlines and \t for tabs in the replacement field. In plain text mode, you can only search and replace literal characters visible in the input.