[Solved] How do I give all italicized text a style?

[Dachimotsu]

I have a huge 80,000 word document, with italicized text dotted all throughout. I want to give all this text a style that will keep it italicized (when viewed as an ebook on various devices). I already figured out how to use Find & Replace to search for all the italicized text, but I don't know if there's something I can type into the "Replace" box that will give it a specific style. I don't want to have to go through the entire book and manually apply the style once at a time.

[robleyd]

This doesn't seem to be possible with the normal Find / Replace tool, but there is an extension Alternative dialog Find & Replace for Writer (AltSearch) which can use Style in the replacement field.

[Dachimotsu]

This doesn't seem to be possible with the normal Find / Replace tool, but there is an extension Alternative dialog Find & Replace for Writer (AltSearch) which can use Style in the replacement field.

That did the trick! Thank you. I didn't even know this program had plugin support.

[Bill]

You don't need to apply the style using Replace. Use "Find All" to highlight (select) all of the italicized text then double-click the "Emphasis" character style in the Styles and Formatting window to apply the style to all of the selected text.

[Lupp]

(Just for completeness:)
@Bill
That's exactly the answer I had in mind, but trying it a short time ago I found a related bug in AltSearch.
I best explain it based on the attached erxample asking you to study my comments contained there.
It should actually be an AltSearch bug since it shows in AOO 4.1.5 and in LibO V 6.2.3.2 (and even in 6.3.0.0.beta1) the same way.

[RoryOF]

I confirm, Lupp. AltSearch finds but does not highlight the first instance.

[robleyd]

Likewise with AOO 4.2.0 Developer Build and AltSearch 1.4.2