Microsoft Word Keyboard Shortcut for Find and Replace

I can't find an easy way to open the find and replace dialogue box in newer versions of Microsoft Word.  There must be some way to access this by the ribbon or other menu in MS Word, but I can not seem to find it.  What I have found, however, is an easy keyboard shortcut to find and replace text in a MS Word document.  In the open file (.doc or .docx) just use the following shortcut keys and the find/replace window will appear:

CTRL + H

**Update: I found the point and click approach for bringing up the find and replace dialogue box!  If you are on the home tab of newer MS Word versions, the button is located on the far right.  There is a section for editing that includes a find, replace, and select menu.

Merge Changes from Multiple Word Files into One Document

Collaborations get you access to lots of data.  However, collaborations lead to long author lists; long author lists lead to many comments from co-authors; and many comments from co-authors can lead to great headaches trying to track changes and get a final clean manuscript together.  Well, fortunately Microsoft Word has a built in feature that enables users to merge changes together from many different contributors into one master document (.doc or .docx file).  This is done iteratively, two at a time, until all the comments from reviewers are in one merged MS Word document.  To do this follow these steps:

1) Open a blank document in Microsoft Word
2) Go to the Review tab and click the Compare icon and then select Combine....
3) In the dialogue box that pops up, input your original file name in the Original document field and one of the changed document file names into the Revised document field.
4) Click on the more button and ensure the the radio button next to Original document is selected under the Show changes in... heading.
5) Click OK and a document will be generated that merges changes from your original and revised document.
6) Repeat steps 2-5, over again for each revised document you want to combine with the merged document.

It is a bit repetitive, but eventually all the changes from each file will be combined and tracked into one master document.  Ideally, the developers at Microsoft will improve the functionality of this so that many changes from many documents can be merged into one document in a single step.  A final note is that Word can only store one set of formatting changes at a time, so if formatting does change from draft to draft a dialogue box will appear asking you which formatting you want to use.  Hope this saves you a lot of time and frustration.

Convert Word Document Field Codes into Formatted Text

Reference management software such as EndNote, Mendeley, etc. are great time savers when inserting citations in a manuscript typed in Microsoft Word.  Sometimes it is necessary to modify or remove the field codes these programs place in a document.  Situations include the need to edit some of the fields or submit a text-only article to a journal.  In these instances, these fields need to be removed and replaced with the appropriately formatted text.  How is this done?  Its incredibly easy...as long as you know the keyboard shortcut.  Here are the two simple steps:

(1) Select the text you want to remove the field codes from.  This can be done by highlighting a section of interest or pressing Ctrl + A if you want to replace the field codes in the entire document.

(2) Press Ctrl + Shift + F9.  This is the actual step that converts field codes into formatted text.

That's it.  You're done!  All your MS Word field codes in your .doc file should now be removed and the appropriate formatted text should be inserted in their place.  Hope this works for you as easily as it did for me.  If you find this post particularly helpful, please help me out by clicking the +1 link on the bottom of the post.