MELANCHOLY404 TECHNOLOGY

Who uses text editors anymore? Coders, yes (and maybe Markdown fanatics like myself). But unless you work in an office environment, a majority of your writing now takes place online; most likely in Google Docs or the WordPress editor.

Writing online is great. It takes the biggest problem – saving and syncing data – totally out of the equation. But you also sacrifice in features. While Google Docs is catching up when it comes to formatting, Word still has a leg up.

One of the features writers use quite often is Find and Replace. While copy editors save our butts from internet ridicule, we do make a lot of mistakes. And we get lazy when it’s time to rectify them. In times like these, Find and Replace is very helpful.

Search and Replace is a Chrome extension that works much like something you find in MS Word. It works for both web pages and text input fields. For bloggers who write in the WordPress editor, this extension can be really useful. Changing the text of articles or websites on your computer can also be fun.

Click on the extension from Chrome’s toolbar and you’ll find two fields: Search for and Replace with. Input the related text.

If you want to replace text in an editor like WordPress’s check the Input fields only? option. There’s also an option to Match Case, meaning letter capitalization.

A lot of us write in Google Docs. It has Find and Replace functionality built in.

Windows users can use the handy Ctrl+H shortcut (Cmd+Shift+H for Mac users) to bring up the Find and Replace box.

Docs also has a Match Case option. Other than that it’s a simple affair. Unlike the Search and Replace extension you can manually scan through each word and decide to replace it or just use the Replace all button.

Find and Replace is a simple add-on for Firefox. Once installed, use the hotkey Shift+R to bring up the toolbar. Here you can enter the Find What and Replace With fields. Choose whether to be case-sensitive or not.

The add-on gives you an option to either replace text one by one or all at once.

FoxReplace is the text replacement tool for pros. It does not have a simple “replace this text with this other text” module. What you do get is preconfigured sets of rules and words.

From the FoxReplace add-on button go to FoxReplace settings and click Add. Here you can define specific URLs and substitutions for a page.

With FoxReplace, you can basically create intricate workflows to replace preconfigured text with something else.

If you work in a field where you regularly need to do so, setting aside a couple of minutes to figure out substitutions in FoxReplace will save you the headache in the long run.

How do you plan on using these Find and Replace features in your favorite browser? Let us know in the comments below.