# Find or replace text in CotEditor on Mac

CotEditor has a powerful find and replacement feature that also can use regular expression.

To show the Find window, select the Find command in the Find menu.

## Find/Replacement Fields

Enter the text to find to the find field, the field with a lope icon; and enter the text to replace with to the replacement field, the field with a pen icon. When the replacement field is empty by replacement, the matched texts are just removed.

To insert the following special characters to the fields, use the following key combinations:

Character | Key combination
--- | ---
line ending character | `Option`-`Return`
tab character | `Option`-`Tab`

## Find/Replacement Histories

You can reuse previous find/replacement strings by selecting them from the lope/pen icon in the field.

## Find Options

Option | Description
--- | ---
Regular Expression | Search with regular expression.
Ignore Case | Ignore character case on search.
In Selection | Search text only from selection.

## Advanced Find Options

You can customize the find behavior in the advanced find options view. To open the view, click the gear button in the Find window.

Option | Description
--- | ---
Wrap search around | Find from the the beginning of the document if there is no match after the insertion point.
Search incrementally | Search document as you type in the search field.

### Textual Search

Options for search when the regular expression is turned off.

Option | Description | Default
--- | --- | ---
Match only whole word | Restrict search results to the whole words. | Off
Distinguish characters strictly | Exact character-by-character equivalence. | Off
Ignore diacritical marks | Search ignores diacritical marks (e.g., ö = o). | Off
Ignore width differences | Search ignores width differences in character forms (e.g., ａ = a). | Off

### Regular Expression Search

Options for search when the regular expression is selected.

Option | Description | Default
--- | --- | ---
Dot matches line separators | Allow . to match any character, including newline characters (singleline). | Off
Anchors match lines | Allow ^ and $ to match the start and end of lines (multiline). | On
Use Unicode word boundaries | Use Unicode TR#29 to specify word boundaries | Off
Unescape replacement string | Unescape meta characters with backslash in replacement string. | On

## See also

- Find or replace a line ending
- Use the regular expression
- Replace text by multiple rules