Find & Replace

Prewrite has two tools for finding words in a story:

• Find, in the header of every view, highlights a word or phrase and steps you through the places it appears.
• Find & Replace is a window that lists every place a word appears in the whole story, so you can change them all at once. It also renames a character everywhere the name is mentioned.

Find in Your Story

1. Click the magnifying glass in the header (Find), or press Cmd + F (Ctrl + F on Windows).
2. Type at least two characters in the Find box.

The matches are highlighted in the view, and the view scrolls to the first one. Below the Find box, the count tells you where you are, such as 1 of 84 in this view · 1 elsewhere.

• Step through the matches: press Enter for the next one and Shift + Enter for the previous one, or use the arrows (Previous match and Next match).
• Match case: click Aa (Match case) to find only text with the same capitals.
• Elsewhere: matches in parts of the story this view doesn't show. Switch to another view and the count and the arrows follow you there. The search stays on while you change views.

Find looks through everything written in the story: its scenes, characters, plot threads and story events. It skips two places: a character's Name field and the names above dialogue. A name written anywhere else, in an action line or a summary, is found like any other word. To see every mention of a character, names above dialogue included, use Rename a Character.

Close and Clear the Search

Click anywhere outside the Find box, or press Esc, to close it. The highlights stay, so you can keep reading and editing around them, and a red dot on the magnifying glass shows that a search is still on. Open the box again to carry on where you left off.

To end the search and remove the highlights, click the ✕ in the Find box (Clear search) or delete what you typed.

Replace Text

1. Open Find and click Replace…. The Find & Replace window opens on its Text tab, with your search already in it. You can also press Cmd + Shift + F (Ctrl + Shift + F on Windows).
2. In Find, type the text to look for, at least two characters. Click Aa to match case.
3. The list shows every match in the story, each with the text around it. Point to a row to see where it is, such as Scene · summary.
4. Every match starts checked. Click a match's check to leave that one as it is.
5. In Replace with, type the new text.
6. Click Replace 12 Items (the button counts the checked matches), or press Enter in Replace with.

The matches are replaced and saved straight away. To take the change back, use Undo in the header, or press Cmd + Z (Ctrl + Z on Windows).

• The Text tab leaves character names alone, including the names above dialogue. Rename a character on the Character Name tab instead (see Rename a Character).
• Answers picked from a list, such as a field with set options, aren't listed, so a replace can't change them.
• If what you typed looks like one of your characters' names, a note suggests the Character Name tab. Click its link to switch.

To close the window without replacing anything, click Close or press Esc. Clicking outside the window doesn't close it, so a search in progress isn't lost.

Rename a Character

Once a character has a name, its Name field in the Edit Window shows the name as text, with a Change name… button beside it. Renaming goes through Find & Replace, so the name changes everywhere the character is mentioned, not only in the field.

1. Open the character in the Edit Window (see Edit a Character) and click Change name…. You can also open Find & Replace and choose its Character Name tab. The tab uses your story's word for a character, so it may read differently.
2. Under Change, the character is already chosen. Click it to pick another.
3. In To, type the new name.
4. Check the matches. They're grouped by the form of the name they use: the full name, the first name, the last name, or a title such as Dr. with the name. Beside each group, an arrow shows what that form becomes. To choose a different form, use the menu after the arrow.
5. Click a group to open it, and click a match's check to leave that one as it is.
6. Click Replace 12 Items (the button counts the checked matches), or press Enter in To.

The character's name and every checked mention change together, including the names above dialogue. Anything written after a name there, such as (V.O.), stays as it is.

• If another character already has the new name, a message says so and the rename is blocked.
• If the new name is close to another character's, a message warns you that mentions of the two may be hard to tell apart. You can still go ahead.
• If the story doesn't mention the character anywhere, only the name changes.