Write your rules
Enter one rule per line in the form find => replace. For example:
colour => color
favourite => favorite
" hello " => " hi "Spaces around the arrow are ignored. To keep a leading or trailing space in a rule, put that side in double quotes, as in the last line. Leave the right side empty to delete the text.
Chain or all at once?
The mode decides what happens when one rule changes text that another rule also matches.
- In order (chain): each rule runs on the result of the one before. Good for step-by-step clean-up.
- All at once: every rule looks at the original text, and replaced text is never changed again. Good for swaps.
Take the text I have a cat and a dog with the rules cat => dog and dog => cat. In order gives I have a cat and a cat, because the second rule changes both. All at once gives I have a dog and a cat, a true swap.
The results table
Below the output you will see how many times each rule matched, so you can spot rules that did nothing or matched more than you expected.
Uses
- Cleaning data, such as replacing abbreviations with full words.
- Filling in templates, such as replacing {{name}} with a real name.
- Redacting names or numbers before sharing text.
- Applying a house style or glossary to a document.
For one replacement, use find and replace. For pattern-based rules, see regex find and replace. The guide explains the ideas in more depth.