Help - HTML in Search and Replace

Introduction

This page explains how the entries in the Search and Replace fields in the Bulk Operations Stage 3 can be used to get specific results. More complex changes can be made using Regular Expressions.

Summary

The strings in the Search and the Replace box can include HTML tags so one could for example do a search for an italicised word using <em>word</em> and replace it by <u><em>word</em></u> in order to add underlining. However in order to make such HTML changes successfully you need to be sure beforehand of exactly how the HTML is formatted - the search would have failed if the HTML text differed even slightly from the search term, say through incorporating some additional spaces: <em> word </em>. Similarly, a search on Reading & Writing will fail because the actual stored HTML text will be Reading &amp; Writing.

Indeed, there are further complications, especially concerning the use of certain characters other than letters and digits. This is because the HTML that one sees via the WYSIWYG editor, i.e. when it has been set to show HTML rather than Source, is not necessarily the actual HTML that is stored. (This is a common cause of unexpected failures of Search and Replace's Search facility to find the pages that were expected.)  To find out exactly what HTML has been stored, you have to go to your Account page, and under the Edit tab uncheck the Filtered HTML & Genuki Topic boxes!