GNU Emacs Manual - Word Search Go to the first , previous , next , last section, table of contents . Word Search Word search searches for a sequence of words without regard to how the words are separated. More precisely, you type a string of many words, using single spaces to separate them, and the string can be found even if there are multiple spaces, newlines or other punctuation between the words.
Word search is useful for editing a printed document made with a text formatter.
If you edit while looking at the printed, formatted version, you can't tell where the line breaks are in the source file. With word search, you can search without having to know them. RET Search backward for words , ignoring details of punctuation. This is followed by the search string, which must always be terminated with RET . Being nonincremental, this search does not start until the argument is terminated.