Sometimes, fortunately not that often, Microsoft Word search function seems to just not work, out of the blue, without any reason.

I’ve tried several options in the Search dialog, such as removing formatting, if existed, searching in all directions, searching only the main text or only footnotes, etc., without success.

I tried also to save the document, if it was not saved, but I didn’t try to change view, e.g. leave Print Layout and activate Draft view. Would this change of view fix things? Just try it yourself and see, it’s easy.

The only thing that worked for me so far, was to close the document and open it again. Word Finder now worked as expected. As usual, a restart can fix things not only for the OS but also with applications.