Hi Guessed,

UPDATE: since having written the paragraph below, I adopted your first solution i.e. 'Find/replace and put ^c' then 'reinstate a bookmark by just creating it again' - this is working fine, I'm happy using that method and so below might be pointless to try n resolve...BTW - the time you have saved me is beyond measure...big thanks



To actuate the locked control change, I followed instructions detailed under the heading 'Lock part of documents with content control in Word' at this webpage: How to lock parts of document in Word? ... having implemented the locked control change, I then followed your above Find & Replace instructions and it worked perfectly on a test document (one page with approx ten words), however the target document crashes i.e. when I select 'Replace All', the process seemingly commences then I receive the following dialogue window messages, in order: 1) 'You cannot close Microsoft Office Word because a dialogue box is open. Click OK, switch to Word, and then close the dialogue box' - noting I did not try to close Word I clicked the dialogue box 'OK' and 2) 'There is insufficient memory or a fatal disk error. Word is closing the saved document'. As for 'insufficient memory' - the target document: is 14MB, 3,273 pages long, contains over 775,000 words - most of which are hyperlinked and contain comments...thoughts? ps thanx for your patience