Word no longer finding italics and bold

Thank you for replying, Sukie. I've been through all your points, documented as follows:

Opening Word in safe mode makes no difference. A search for italics (or bold) in my test document does not find them.

Copying the contents of the document to a new one (what editors call "maggying") makes no difference. I can still not find italics or bold.

I have the most up-to-date build of Office (and Word). I checked the build number against the list at the link you supplied (although I didn't get my update until June 5th, not  June 3rd) (screenshot below)

I'm not searching on keyword. I'm simply searching for formatting. So far, it's italics and bold that I've noticed. I've included two screenshots of searches done in particular document in which F&R won't find bold at all, and only finds one instance of italics (I applied that italics after June 5th). I've included screenshots below of my searches. I've been using this method to search for formatting for years with no issues.

I'm in a huge editors Facebook group (over 6,000 members around the world) and I posted my problem there. Another editor had the same problem earlier this week and hasn't found a solution either.

It seems to be able to find formatting (bold, italics) if that formatting has been applied since JUne 5th. So if I created a new document now, it will find italics and bold. But if I go back to a document I was working on earlier in the week, before June 5th, and look for italics I created previously or that was created by someone else, it won't find it.

I tested a book manuscript I was working on in 2018 of nearly 200 pages. It would only find italics in tables in appendices at the end. It didn't find italics in the footnotes or in the main text.

Re: search. If I try searching via 'Styles' in the dropdown menu of the "Find" dialogue, the character style Italic is not listed; it is listed in documents where I can find the italics.

Bold search

Italic search

Software version

Hi Averill,

Thank you for your message in this forum.

I have tested it with the latest version of Word and it works fine.(For the latest version of Office, you can refer to this article: Update history for Office 365 ProPlus)

So I would give you the suggestions below and hope that will help you:

1. You can try to open Word in safe mode to check if the same problem will occur. This is useful when you need to open a file that you can't under normal mode because the application is crashing or if you need help in identifying an add-in or extension that may be causing a problem on startup. As steps shown below:

        Right-click the Start button (lower-left corner) in Windows, and click Run.

        In the Run box, type one of the command:  Word: winword /safe

1. If the issue only occurs on specific files, you can create a new document, then you can copy the content of them into new document to check if the same problem will occur.

If the problem persists, I want to confirm the information below with you:

1. Could you provide the version of your Word? You can go to Word File > Account > Product Information and provide the screenshot of it.(Please remove your email address)
2. Do all the other styles have the same problem? You can use the other styles of font to search the keyword to check if the same problem will occur.
3. At the same time, could you provide the screenshot of your search in the problematic document ?

Best Regards,

Sukie

I should add that newly added italics can be found, but italics that was added to a document more than a few days ago isn't.