Question: Basically I am using MS Word's find and replace feature (wildcard:true)

but the text I have to edit contains stuff that messes up the search:

```
//more text in different format above

<file name="london_bitmap" bits="24", owner="sergio"> 1 2 3 </file>
<file name="paris_bitmap" bits="24", owner="sergio"> 1 2 3 </file>
<file name="moscow_bitmap" bits="24", owner="sergio"> 1 2 3 </file>

```

I want to replace bitmap with a bmp prefix so:

```
<file name="bmp_london" bits="24", owner="sergio"> 1 2 3 </file>

```

When I use something like this:

```
(<*>)_(<bitmap>)

```

it captures not 1 line but all it can find till it hits "bitmap"

Any idea on how to solve this? Maybe but getting the word just previous to "bitmap"?

Answer: 
The following works (in Word 2003) as the search string 

```
([!"]@)_(<bitmap>)

```

The [!"] part means : match any single character that **isn't** a double quote character, and the @ qualifier means "find at least one of the preceding". The replacement expression (which I expect you already know :) is 

```
bmp_\1

```

Hope this helps!
Not sure if word supports lazy evaluation but you might try replacing \* by \*?