Word no longer finding italics and bold

Anonymous
2019-06-07T12:34:05+00:00

Just in the last day or so, Word no longer finds italics or bold from the Find or Find & Replace dialogue box. I should qualify that: it will find them in some of documents but not in all of them.

I work as a professional book editor and have been using Word for many years and consider myself to be fairly experienced. Yesterday, I was able to find all italics in a properly formatted manuscript (using the styles pane) and highlight all instances of italics. Today, in the same document F&R tells me there are no italics in the document, despite me staring at them onscreen (still highlighted in yellow). It's the same in many other documents today (but not all).

I can't find italics either if I search using 'Style' in the Find box.

I'm using the downloaded version of Office 365 on an up-to-date Windows 10 PC. Any ideas as to a solution. Being able to find italics and bold is crucial to my work.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2019-11-19T07:02:11+00:00

It seems the issue is now fixed! I've had some major updates over the last few weeks and I'm now able to find italics and bold again just like before.  My Office 365 Business version number is 16.0.12130.20344.

Many thanks to everyone for interim solutions and to those who reported it.

Averill

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-06-08T19:32:36+00:00

    Hi Predrag,

    Yes, I have a laptop too and thought I'd try it out with the same documents (if I can stop it automatically downloading updates when I boot it up). It's not an old laptop (the same age as the desktop), but I don't use it often. The laptop and the desktop are configured exactly the same way.

    I need to meet my deadline first :)

    Averill

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-06-08T15:24:02+00:00

    Hi Averil

    I have the same problem - finding bold and italic in text. As you said everything started last week. I am still looking for solutions but small help will be:

    If you have some old computer or lap top that was not updated (as I have due to small hard disc and updates shut off) even new files with bold-italic problem, work perfect on old non-updated office (lap top).

    I think some of latest updates from Office 365 have a bug.

    So if you have old comp you can try to do those files there.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-06-08T07:31:35+00:00

    If I read this correctly, you can still find bold / italics in documents created in the last couple of days, but not in older ones.

    Could you please make a copy of an older file, cut out most of the text leaving a few examples of the problem. Upload it so we can try to recreate the problem, to confirm it is not just local.  Then you can submit a Feedback to MS reporting this bug

    Upload Example - Trouble Shooting - Share OneDrive File

    Trouble shooting problems in files can be like a visit to the dentist, a long, slow painful process of us trying to “extract” the clues needed to recognize the problem in a back and forth flow of questions and answers so that we can come up with a / “the” solution.

    Often it is faster and easier for everyone if we have a “sample file” get "hands on", to look at, and to “play with”.

    This next link provides some tips on setting up a sample file and specific instructions for uploading and "sharing" it for us to access:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-winapps/trouble-shooting-share-onedrive-file/a231a097-bcbf-4e34-ad6c-a33118baf471?tm=1523189328156

    Includes a link to a macro to randomize text in Word.

    **************************************

    **********************

    Send Feedback to MS Developers ****Launch Feedback Hub via  <WIN><F>

    “Official” MS does not pay much attention to this forum. However, you now can send your complaints and feature requests directly to MS developers and managers using one of the 4 possible “Feedback” mechanisms described in this link:

    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/send-feedback-to-ms-developers/506e7654-8ced-405b-911e-c58d8f253069

    Please post a share link to your feedback, back here, so other people who find your question will be able to vote for it and add their comments to it.

    Collection of MS “UserVoice” web links:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows\_10-desktop/ms-suggestion-box-sites-at-usdervoicecom/7397119c-6d48-49e6-8d94-7bd0a50d214f

    MS Feedback article, says basically the same thing:

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4021566/windows-10-send-feedback-to-microsoft-with-feedback-hub

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-06-07T22:07:42+00:00

    To Steve and Suzanne, it's happening in both Times New Roman and Calibri, and yes, the italic button is enabled when italic text is selected. I usually apply italic and bold as character styles using keyboard shortcuts. Words in italic appear as italic onscreen, and are in the Style Panel. But even if a paragraph style is listed in the styles panel has italics as one of its attributes, F&R is not finding it as italics (but it will find it under its style name).

    As I say, I've been using Word a long time and nothing that has always worked in the past in working now. I have a deadline for Monday, so I'm trying not to get too caught up in this right now. If I had time I'd do more experiments.

    Thanks for your help thus far.

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