Find and Replace in WPF DOCX Editor

18 Aug 20267 minutes to read

The WPF RichTextBox (SfRichTextBoxAdv) control supports searching text contents in the document. When combined with selection, it becomes a powerful tool for highlighting specific parts of the document, applying formatting such as bold, or replacing text. You can extend your search by using regular expressions to find a particular pattern of text in the document.

The find and replace operations are exposed through the Find, FindAll, and FindOptions API members.

Find

The following code example explains how to find the first occurrence of a particular text in the document and apply bold formatting.

// Finds the first occurrence of a specified text that matches case in SfRichTextBoxAdv document from current selection.
TextSearchResult textSearchResult = richTextBoxAdv.Find("Panda", FindOptions.CaseSensitive);

// Selects the text search result.
richTextBoxAdv.Selection.Select(textSearchResult.Start, textSearchResult.End);

// Applies Bold formatting for the current selection.
richTextBoxAdv.Selection.CharacterFormat.Bold = true;
' Finds the first occurrence of a specified text that matches case in SfRichTextBoxAdv document from current selection.
Dim textSearchResult As TextSearchResult = richTextBoxAdv.Find("Panda", FindOptions.CaseSensitive)

' Selects the text search result.
richTextBoxAdv.Selection.Select(textSearchResult.Start, textSearchResult.[End])

' Applies Bold formatting for the current selection.
richTextBoxAdv.Selection.CharacterFormat.Bold = True

The Find method accepts a FindOptions value that controls how the search is performed. The following flags are available:

Flag Description
None Performs a case-insensitive search without whole-word matching (default behavior).
CaseSensitive Performs a search that matches the exact case of the search text.
WholeWord Performs a search that matches only whole words.

NOTE

When CaseSensitive is not specified, the search is case-insensitive by default.

Find all

The following code example demonstrates how to find all occurrences of a particular pattern of text in the document and highlight the result.

// Finds all the words that start with ‘S’ in SfRichTextBoxAdv document.
TextSearchResults textSearchResults = richTextBoxAdv.FindAll(new Regex(@"\bS\S*"), FindOptions.None);

// If any text search results found.
if (textSearchResults != null)
{
    for (int j = 0; j < textSearchResults.Count; j++)
    {
        TextSearchResult textSearchResult = textSearchResults[j];

        // Adds the search result text positions to the selection.
        richTextBoxAdv.Selection.SelectionRanges.Add(textSearchResult.Start, textSearchResult.End);
    }

    // Applies highlight color to all selected ranges.
    richTextBoxAdv.Selection.CharacterFormat.HighlightColor = HighlightColor.Yellow;
}
' Finds all the words that start with ‘S’ in SfRichTextBoxAdv document.
Dim textSearchResults As TextSearchResults = richTextBoxAdv.FindAll(New Regex("\bS\S*"), FindOptions.None)

' If any text search results found.
If textSearchResults IsNot Nothing Then
    For j As Integer = 0 To textSearchResults.Count - 1
        Dim textSearchResult As TextSearchResult = textSearchResults(j)

        ' Adds the search result text positions to the selection.
        richTextBoxAdv.Selection.SelectionRanges.Add(textSearchResult.Start, textSearchResult.[End])
    Next

    ' Applies highlight color to all selected ranges.
    richTextBoxAdv.Selection.CharacterFormat.HighlightColor = HighlightColor.Yellow
End If

The example above applies a HighlightColor to the selected ranges. The supported values are Black, Blue, Cyan, Green, Magenta, Red, Yellow, White, and None (which clears an existing highlight).

Replacing existing text

You can replace a single occurrence or all occurrences of a particular text or pattern of text in a document with another text by performing a search operation. This makes it easy to modify the document contents.

Replace a single occurrence

The following code example demonstrates how to replace a single occurrence of a text with another text in SfRichTextBoxAdv. The TextSearchResult.Replace(string) method takes the replacement text as its argument and replaces the matched text in the current result.

// Finds the text "colour" that matches whole word in the document.
TextSearchResult textSearchResult = richTextBoxAdv.Find("colour", FindOptions.WholeWord);

// If any text search result found, replace it with the text "color".
if (textSearchResult != null)
    textSearchResult.Replace("color");
' Finds the text "colour" that matches whole word in the document.
Dim textSearchResult As TextSearchResult = richTextBoxAdv.Find("colour", FindOptions.WholeWord)

' If any text search result found, replace it with the text "color".
If textSearchResult IsNot Nothing Then
	textSearchResult.Replace("color")
End If

Replace all occurrences

The following code example demonstrates how to replace all occurrences of a particular text with another text in SfRichTextBoxAdv. The TextSearchResults.ReplaceAll(string) method takes the replacement text as its argument and applies it to every match returned by FindAll.

// Finds the text "analyse" that matches whole word in the document.
TextSearchResults textSearchResults = richTextBoxAdv.FindAll("analyse", FindOptions.WholeWord);

// If any text search results found, replace all occurrences with the text "analyze".
if(textSearchResults != null)
    textSearchResults.ReplaceAll("analyze");
' Finds the text "analyse" that matches whole word in the document.
Dim textSearchResults As TextSearchResults = richTextBoxAdv.FindAll("analyse", FindOptions.WholeWord)

' If any text search results found, replace all occurrences with the text "analyze".
If textSearchResults IsNot Nothing Then
	textSearchResults.ReplaceAll("analyze")
End If

Options pane

The SfRichTextBoxAdv provides built-in options pane support to find text and navigate through the search results, similar to that of Microsoft Word.

The following code example demonstrates how to show the options pane in SfRichTextBoxAdv through the ShowOptionsPaneCommand routed UI command.

<!-- Binding Button to UI Command that shows the options pane  -->
<Button Content="Show Options Pane" Command="RichTextBoxAdv:SfRichTextBoxAdv.ShowOptionsPaneCommand" CommandTarget="{Binding ElementName=richTextBoxAdv}" />

WPF RichTextBox displays the Find option pane with the search input and navigation controls

NOTE

You can refer to our WPF RichTextBox feature tour page for its groundbreaking feature representations. You can also explore our WPF RichTextBox example to know how to render and configure the editing tool.

See also