Find and Replace in Excel: fix a word everywhere at once

One old spelling in 400 cells? Find and Replace fixes all of them in one go.

Steps

1. Press Ctrl + H.
2. Find what: Bombay. Replace with: Mumbai.
3. Click Replace All.

Excel tells you how many replacements it made.

Replace in part of the sheet only

Select the cells first, then press Ctrl + H. Replace All stays inside the selection.

Remove something (replace with nothing)

To delete every hyphen: Find what -, leave Replace with empty, Replace All. Same trick removes stray spaces or a currency symbol.

Match the whole cell only

Click Options and tick Match entire cell contents. Now “Pune” is replaced but “Pune East” is not.

See before you replace

Click Find All first. A list shows every match with its cell address. Then Replace All.

Check it worked

Press Ctrl + F, search for the old word, click Find All. It should say nothing was found.

Common mistakes

Replacing inside formulas. Find and Replace also changes text inside formulas, so replacing “A” with “B” can turn =A1 into =B1. Use Match entire cell contents, or set Look in: Values.

Replacing across all sheets. Under Options, Within: Workbook changes every sheet. Default is Sheet.