Search|Replace All

After using Prepare to Search or pressing Ctrl+F and entering a search term and replacement text, click the Replace All button on the Search toolbar or select the Replace All item in the Search menu to find the first search match. Replace All starts searching from the beginning just like Find First does. If it finds a match, it replaces it like Replace Current would, and then continues searching like Find Next would, replacing all further search matches.

The only difference between clicking Replace All and using all the individual action buttons is that Replace All is silent. It simply replaces all matches without moving the selection or the text cursor. Even when searching through all projects or all files, the current file remains active throughout the operation.

If no search matches can be found, EditPad briefly flashes the Replace All button’s icon to indicate failure. If you used the keyboard shortcut to do the Replace All with the search panel hidden, check the status bar for the result.

If there are a lot of search matches, replacing them all might take a while. A progress meter will pop up to indicate EditPad’s progress after a second or two.

In EditPad Pro, the Replace All button on the search toolbar has a drop-down menu with two items: Replace All Next and Replace All Previous. Replace All Next performs the search-and-replace on the part of the file after the position of the text cursor. If a search match is already highlighted, that match is replaced too. Effectively, Replace All Next does in one click what you can do by clicking Replace and Find Next until no further matches can be found.

The Replace All Previous button does the same, except that it searches backwards, performing the search-and-replace on the part of the file before the position of the text cursor. If a search match is already highlighted, that match is replaced too. Replace All Previous is not available in regular expression mode. Regular expressions cannot search backwards.

EditPad does not have a “prompt on replace” option. If you only want to replace certain matches, use the technique described in the topic for Search|Find Next. The benefit of EditPad’s way of working is that you can make other edits and even change the search term or replacement text in between making replacements. You can even go backwards with Search|Replace and Find Previous.

Search|Replace All

See Also