Free Text Search and Replace Software

ReplaceEm

ReplaceEm allows you to search and replace text in files using regular expressions. You can specify a filter for the files in a folder that are to be used (eg *.c and *.html for all files ending with .c and .html), as well as apply the search and replace operation only to files that don't match your criteria. It generates a log for the find and replace operation as well as allows you to specify that the altered file is to be placed in a different location. This is a Windows program.

InfoRapid Search and Replace

InfoRapid is a Windows utility that allows you to search and replace text within ASCII text files, PDF files (with the help of a third party program), HTML files, RTF files and even Microsoft Office files. It also supports regular expressions for pattern matching. The program cannot be used on a commercially used computer.

K-free: Free Search and Replace

This program allows you to find a particular piece of literal text in a set of files and replace it with another piece of text. A backup copy of the changed file is made, as well as a log for the last replacement made. You can specify that the match must be of an entire word, whether the search be case sensitive, and a few other criteria. (It's not regular expression based though, so the criteria you can specify is somewhat limited.) This is a Windows program.

Search and Replace

This program allows you to search and replace literal text or blocks of text in files matching a particular filter. It also has the ability to replace text begining with a particular string (say, ) with a different text. It requires you to have installed the Microsoft .NET framework, and thus to be running Windows.

TextRep

TextRep is a simple text search and replace utility that allows you to replace a one-lined literal text with another piece of literal text in files that you select using their GUI. It is a Windows program.

Agent Ransack

Agent Ransack allows you to search and replace text using regular expressions. This is a Windows program.

AstroGrep

AstroGrep is a Windows GUI version of the Unix grep that allows you to search in files using regular expressions. Note that it does not have replace facilities. Unlike grep however, it includes a GUI facility that allows you to print various aspects of your search results. AstroGrep is open source.

GNU sed

The venerable sed utility is a command line utility to search and replace text from a set of files using regular expressions. It has been ported to a huge variety of operating systems. The link above points to the source code.