>>>Is a "replace all" in Word automation as straight forward as it should be?
>>
>>Look in the vba help file for the correct syntax.
>>
>>I have done something like this in the past to insert special char like checkbox in a grid.
>>
>>The first thing to do in these case was to select the entire document and perform the replace in the selection object from VBA.
>>
>>HTH :-)
>
>Thanks I'll look into that tomorrow.

One thing to look into, as well, is the VBA equivalent of lockscreen. If your document is long, you don't really want screen refreshes while this works. I haven't really found this in any of my saved macros, and the ones I found were still using word.basic object. Good luck.