Microsoft Office

Making Your Worksheets Error-Free 32
Searching and Replacing
Excel has a powerful search and replace feature that makes it easy to locate information in a worksheet or
across multiple worksheets in a workbook. As an option, you can also search for text and replace it with
other text.
To access the Find And Replace dialog box, start by selecting the range that you want to search. If you select
any single cell, Excel searches the entire sheet. Choose Home ➪ Editing ➪ Find & Select ➪ Find (or click
Ctrl+F). You’ll see the dialog box shown in Figure 32.13. If you’re simply looking for information in the
worksheet, click the Find tab. If you want to replace existing text with new text, use the Replace tab. Also
note that you can use the Options button to display (or hide) additional options. The dialog box shown in
the figure displays these additional options.
FIGURE 32.13
Use the Find And Replace dialog box to locate information in a worksheet or workbook.
Searching for information
Enter the information to search for in the Find What text box and then specify any of the following options.
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Use the Within drop-down list to specify where to search (the current sheet or the entire workbook).
Use the Search drop-down list to specify the direction (by rows or by columns).
Use the Look In drop-down list to specify what cell parts to search (formulas, values, or comments).
Use the Match Case check boxes to specify whether the search should be case sensitive.
Use the Match Entire Cell Contents check box to specify whether the entire cell contents must be
matched.
Click the Format button to search for cells that have a particular formatting (see the upcoming
“Searching for formatting” section).
Click Find Next to locate the matching cells one at a time or click Find All to locate all matches. If you use
the Find All button, the Find And Replace dialog box expands to display the addresses of all matching cells
in a list (see Figure 32.14). When you select an entry in this list, Excel scrolls the worksheet so that you can
view it in context.
TIP
After using Find All, press Ctrl+A to select all the found cells.
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