By ordinary find/replace do you mean from the main body of the document, not within a header or footer? I was in the odd or even page footer and find wouldn't proceed to the next section's footer.

I'm trying to replace ordinary text with a cross-reference, and pasting a copied cross-reference with or without field codes displayed pastes the result of the field code into the replace box and appears to no longer be a cross-reference, just straight text. When pasted into the document it certainly isn't a cross-reference.

I'll have to try copying to the clipboard and pasting the clipboard (^c) to see if that works. (I think when I last tried it didn't work for x-refs.)

Putting ^d REF nameofbookmark in the replace box gives an error (^d is not a valid special character in the Replace With box). (I know you said to do it in the Find box, but I want to replace text with a cross-ref.)

When using ^d REF in the Find box, should wildcards be on or off? I think off, but I'm working on Replace, not Find, so I didn't try.

I guess I should have specified in my original post that the Replace box should have a right-click Insert Cross-Reference option. (I guess Find could use it too even though you presented a way.)