In Atlantis you can search your documents for characters, special symbols, strings of text, images, and formatting. If required, any found item can be automatically replaced with a character, symbol, or string of text, or formatted in any desired way.
There are two ways to start searching:
Click the Find 
toolbar button, or press the Ctrl+F keys, or choose the Edit | Find... main menu command.
This would bring the Find / Replace dialog with the Find tab automatically selected:
If you plan not only to search for text but also replace found items with another text and/or format found items in some way, press the Ctrl+H keys, or choose the Edit | Replace... main menu command.
This would bring the Find / Replace dialog with the Replace tab automatically selected:
After this you should specify information which you want to search for. Just type the desired text in the Find edit box:
If you recently searched for this text, it might be contained by the "Find what" history list. Click the "down" arrow attached to the Find edit box to choose a recent search string from the "Find what" history list:
If you also plan to replace found items with another text, you need to specify the replacement in the Replace with box:
If you recently replaced with this text, it might be contained by the "Replace with" history list. Click the "down" arrow attached to the Replace with edit box to choose a recent string from the "Replace with" history list:
Leaving the Replace with box blank means that any found item would be replaced with "nothing" (ie deleted).
Note that the maximal number of items stored in both the "Find what" and "Replace with" history lists is controlled by the Number of items in the histories option from the General tab of the Tools | Options... dialog.
There is another way to specify text to search for. When the Find word at cursor option on the Edit tab of the Tools | Options... dialog is on, you can click or select the desired word in your document before calling the Find / Replace dialog. This word would be automatically placed to the Find box of the Find / Replace dialog:
Normally Atlantis searches the whole document for the required text. But you can restrict your search operations to the desired text fragment (for example, to a paragraph or a chapter of your document).
So if you want to search only a particular text fragment, select it first before calling the Find / Replace dialog. The Find / Replace dialog would show the search scope options:
You can always choose another search scope if desired. All the search commands will be restricted to the chosen portion of your document.
Note that you can search not only ordinary selection but also multiple selection and column blocks.
By default, when you choose the Edit | Find... menu command of Atlantis, or press Ctrl+F, the basic version of the Find / Replace dialog gets displayed:
It has a very compact and clean design, and offers only a few basic options.
This basic version of the Find / Replace dialog has a More button:
Clicking it displays an advanced version of the Find / Replace dialog with additional options:
Of course, in this advanced Find / Replace dialog the Less button takes you back to the basic version of the dialog.
Two options in the advanced version of the Find / Replace dialog control how Atlantis will compare text from the Find box of the Find / Replace dialog to the document text:
When the Whole words only option is on, Atlantis will search for whole words only.
With this option off, the search string might be found within longer words.
When the Case sensitive option is on, Atlantis will differentiate uppercase from lowercase when performing a search. For example, Atlantis would assume that "Atlantis" and "ATLANTIS" are not the same.
When this option is off, case pattern of text in the document and in the Find box of the Find / Replace dialog does not matter.
In the Search direction box you can specify a direction for searching:
The procedure to change these options is as follows:
1. If necessary, press the More button to switch to the advanced version of the Find / Replace dialog.
2. Modify these options as required.
3. If desired, click the Less button to switch back to the basic version of the Find / Replace dialog.
Note that these options are automatically saved and will be systematically used by Atlantis until you change them again.
Right under the Find box in the advanced version of the Find / Replace dialog, there is the Format check box:
Check this option to search for text with specific formatting. A small toolbar with format buttons will automatically be displayed next to the Format check box:
These buttons allow you to specify which specific formatting you want to search for.
Tip. You can search for ANY text having the specified formatting. This is done by specifying a format pattern to search for, and leaving the Find box blank.
On the other hand, if you want to search for a string of text bearing some specific formatting, you must type that string in the Find box, check the Format box, and specify the target formatting, using the dedicated buttons:
So when the Format box is checked, Atlantis searches for text that has the formatting specified through the format buttons located next to it:
Of course, initially these buttons bear no formatting. This is indicated through their popup hints:
Etc.
You will click these toolbar buttons to specify:
1. a font format pattern including bold, italic, font face, font color, etc,
2. a highlighting color,
3. a language,
4. a paragraph format pattern including alignment, indents, spacing between paragraphs, etc,
5. any style present in the document.
When a format pattern has been defined, placing the mouse pointer over any of these toolbar buttons displays information about the search pattern.
Let’s take an example.
Let’s suppose that you clicked the leftmost button in the Find / Replace dialog to specify a font format.
Let’s suppose that you chose to look for text with "bold effect" and "blue font color":
Let’s suppose that you OK’d out of the Font Format dialog.
The same leftmost toolbar button will show a popup hint with the font format pattern that you specified:
You can choose as many formatting attributes as you want, either through a single formatting button, or through all 5 buttons concurrently.
Now you might want to define another search format pattern. Here is how to proceed:
1. First, uncheck the Format box option to reset the search format pattern. This will clear any previously defined format pattern.
2. Check the Format box again and specify a new format pattern from scratch.
Note that the Format box option is automatically unchecked when you click the Less button in the Find / Replace dialog. This means that any previously defined format pattern is cleared whenever you close the advanced panel of the Find / Replace dialog.
Also note that the Format box is always initially unchecked whenever you restart Atlantis. This means that no search format pattern is defined when Atlantis starts.
So you can search for specific text or any text with some formatting. But you can not only search for formatting in your documents but also format the found text in any desired way.
Let’s take a look at the Replace tab of the advanced version of the Find / Replace dialog. It also includes a Format check box:
Checking this "Replace with" Format box also displays a small toolbar next to it:
These "Replace with" format buttons are identical to the ones displayed under the Find box. They work in the same way. Use them to specify which formatting Atlantis should apply to the found text.
So you can use the Find / Replace dialog to reformat text across whole documents. This can be done in two main ways:
You can leave the Replace with box blank and specify a format pattern to apply to the found text:
Any text that Atlantis finds will be reformatted as specified in the "Replace with" format.
Let’s take an example. Let’s suppose that your document contains bold text.
Let’s suppose that you want to add red font color formatting to that bold text.
All you need to do is set up the Find/Replace dialog so that "bold" is specified in the "Find" format pattern, and "red font color" in the "Replace with" format pattern. The newly reformatted text will display in bold red letters.
You can also specify any text in the Replace with box. In such cases, any found text will be replaced with the text specified in the Replace with box. But the new text will also be formatted with the format pattern currently associated with the Replace with box.
The notes regarding the Format box under the Find box also apply to the Format box found under the Replace with box. When you click the Less button in the Find / Replace dialog, both Format check boxes are automatically unchecked, and any formatting they might be associated with is automatically cleared.
The Find and Replace with edit boxes can include not only ordinary text but also special symbols. But special symbols need to be coded in a special way, through a pair of characters starting with a "^" lid symbol.
To insert a special symbol to the Find or Replace with edit box:
Click the 
button next to this edit box:
Choose the desired symbol from the menu:
Note that some special symbols are available only for the Find box (for example, a section break, or picture).
The Find / Replace commands themselves can be performed by clicking rightmost buttons in the Find / Replace dialog:
Clicking Find and Select All would select all instances of target text in the document as a multiple selection:
Like any other multiple selection, the highlighted fragments can be formatted, copied, deleted, moved, replaced with a different text, etc.
As shown in the above screen capture, a dialog is displayed when the "Find and Select All" operation is complete. This gives you rough-and-ready information on how often a particular word or phrase is used within the selection or across the whole document, depending on the search scope.
Even when the Find / Replace dialog is not displaying, you can still perform most of the Find / Replace commands through the keyboard. The following table lists the default hot keys which correspond to the buttons of the Find / Replace dialog:
| Hot Key | Button of the "Find / Replace" dialog |
| F3 | Find Next |
| Ctrl+Shift+F5 | Replace Next |
| Shift+Alt+F5 | Replace All |