In an exploring mood, I dug up the following old post I sent in 2003. The
same buggy behavior, exactly as described, persists in MS Word 2003:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Uriel Wittenberg"
Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.word.application.errors,microsoft .public.word.formatting.longdocs
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2003 7:49 PM
Subject: Amazing Bug in Search/Replace


Create a 16,500-line .TXT file as follows:

--------------------------------
0 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
1 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
2 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
....
16499 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
--------------------------------

Open it in Word 2000 (9.0.6926 SR-3).

Replace all

"$q^p" (no formatting)

with

"^p" (with formatting: choose some paragraph style)

The quotation marks (") above are not included in the search & replace
strings.

Here are the amazing results I get: all but 36 of the 16,500 lines are
changed as expected. 36 are left unchanged.

The ones that don't get changed are not contiguous:

1002 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
1258 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
1514 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
1770 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q
....
9962 test test test test test test test test test test test test $q

In fact, they appear to be 256 lines apart, don't they? But 1002 is the
first, and 9962 the last.

Is there some way to get reliable, comprehensive search & replace in
Word?

--
http://urielw.com