Wildcards (Advanced)
Wildcards in depth
Join PEG for an online workshop that will help you to harness the full power of MS Word’s wildcard Find and Replace function.
Date: Tuesday, 7 October 2025
Time: 18:00–20:00 (Central African Time: GMT +02:00)
Presenter: Kevin Walker
Platform: Online (Zoom meeting)
Level: Intermediate
Prerequisites/foundational knowledge: Basics of Word’s Find and Replace. (The ‘Taming Wildcards’ webinar of 11 February 2025 will be a good basis.)
CPD hours: PEG members will earn CPD hours according to the criteria published on the PEG website. Attendees of the live presentation will receive a certificate confirming their attendance and the duration of the webinar. Those who are unable to attend the webinar live may submit their receipt as proof of having received the recording.
Pre-webinar materials: None.
About the webinar
Wildcards are an extremely powerful pattern-matching tool that save you time and allow you to work more accurately. This webinar builds on the introduction to Wildcard Find and Replace in MS Word.* We’ll go through the various wildcard characters and what they do, learn to construct wildcard expressions and try them out on loads of practical examples.
Wildcards are special characters in MS Word’s Find and Replace that may be used to find text that matches a given pattern instead of specific text. It’s great for finding all occurrences of a usage, even when you don’t know the exact content in advance. For example, you may wish to search for any number followed by a letter (for finding unspaced units of measurement) or any two capital letters (for identifying initialisms/abbreviations). The ‘found’ text may be used as part of the ‘replace’ string – in whole or broken up into parts (eg to swap/transpose text snippets, insert new text in the middle of the existing string or delete only part of the found text).
* You may purchase a recording of the ‘Taming Wildcards’ webinar of 11 February 2025 at regular rates. Please contact Sharon at webinars@editors.org.za should you wish to do so.
About our facilitator
Kevin Walker started his long and happy relationship with the Microsoft Office suite during a ‘misspent youth’, messing about on the family computer while his friends were probably playing outside in the sunshine. Most of his MS Word learning has been guided by curiosity (‘What does this button do?!’), the belief that ‘there must be a (better) way to do that’, lots of Googling, and the subsequent joy in finding solutions to and workarounds for tricky issues. He is passionate about sharing these skills with others and helping them to resolve their own prickly problems.
Cost
| Affiliation | Discounted registration fee1 | Early-bird registration fee2 | Registration fee (one webinar)3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PEG members | R150 | R295 | R380 |
| Members of affiliated organisations4 | – | R495 | R580 |
| Non-affiliated members | – | R695 | R780 |
1This fee is available only to those PEG members who registered for the ‘Taming Wildcards’ webinar of 11 February 2025 (or have purchased a recording of that webinar).
2Early-bird registration fee: Before or on Monday, 30 September
3Between Tuesday, 1 October, and Sunday, 5 October
4Professional Journalists’ Association of South Africa (ProJourn), Southern African Freelancers’ Association (SAFREA), South African Science Journalists’ Association (SASJA), the South African Translators’ Institute (SATI), Publishers’ Association of South Africa (PASA), Society of English-language professionals in the Netherlands (SENSE), Institute of Professional Editors Limited (IPEd), Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading (CIEP), Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) and Nordic Editors and Translators (NEaT).
Take advantage of the early-bird special: save money and secure your spot at this webinar series by registering early!
Please register by completing and emailing the registration form to the webinar administrator.
Deadline for registration: Sunday, 5 October 2025