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Excel VBA Find – A Complete Guide

by Paul Kelly | Sep 7, 2015 | Excel Specific | 131 comments

“I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of” – Michel de
Montaigne

Contents [hide]

1 Introduction
2 Download the Source Code
3 What is the VBA Find Function?
4 Introduction

4.1 Excel Find Dialog

4.2 How to Use Options With Find

5 VBA Find Parameters

5.1 Important Note about Find Parameters

6 The Find Return Value

7 How to do a Simple Find

7.1 When the Value is not Found

8 Using After with Find

8.1 Example 1 Without After

We use cookies to8.2
ensure that we
Example give you
2 Using the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will
After
assume that you are happy with it.
8.3 Example 3 Wrapping Around
Ok
9 Using LookIn with Find
 10 Using LookAt with Find
11 Using SearchOrder with Find
12 Using SearchDirection with Find

12.1 Using xlPrevious with After

13 Using MatchCase with Find

14 Using MatchByte with Find
15 Using the WildCard
16 Using SearchFormat with Find

16.1 Using Wild Card with Format

16.2 Important – Clearing Format

17 Multiple Searches
18 Finding the Last Cell Containing Data
19 Finding Cells with Patterns
20 An Alternative to using VBA Find
21 Find and Replace
22 What’s Next?

Introduction
This post covers everything you need to know about the VBA Find function. It explains,
how to use Find, in simple terms. It also has tons of code examples of Find you can use
right now.

If you want to go straight to an example of Find then check out How to do a Simple Find.

If you want to search for text within a string then you are looking for the InStr and
InStrRev functions.

If you want to find the last row or column with data then go to Finding the Last Cell
Containing Data

Download the Source Code

What is the VBA Find Function?

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The Find function is very commonly used in VBA. The three most important things to know
assume that you are happy with it.
about Find are:
Ok
 1. The Find function is a member of Range.
2. It searches a range of cells containing a given value or format.
3. It is essentially the same as using the Find Dialog on an Excel worksheet.

Introduction

Excel Find Dialog

To view the Excel Find dialog, go to the Home ribbon and click on Find & Select in the
Editing section. In the menu that appears select Find(shortcut is Ctrl + F)

When you do this the following dialog will appear:

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The VBA Find function uses most of the
assume options
that you areyou can
happy see
with it. on this Dialog.
Ok
 How to Use Options With Find
To use the options you pass them as parameters to the Find function. This is similar to how
you use worksheet functions. For example, the Sum function has a Range as a parameter.
This means you give it a range when you use it.

The VBA Find uses parameters in the same way. You must give it the item you are
searching for. This is the first parameter and it is required.

The rest of the parameters are optional. If you don’t use them then Find will use the
existing settings. We’ll see more about this shortly.

The table in the next section shows these parameters. The sections that follow this, give
examples and details of how to use these parameters.

VBA Find Parameters

The following tables shows all the Find parameters.

Parameter Type Description Values

What Required The value you are Any VBA data

searching for type e.g
String, Long

After Optional A single cell range that Range("A5")

you start your search
from

LookIn Optional What to search in e.g. xlValues,

Formulas, Values or xlFormulas,
Comments xlComments

LookAt Optional Look at a part or the xlWhole,

whole of the cell xlPart

SearchOrder Optional The order to search xlByRows or

xlByColumns.
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assume that you are happy with it.
SearchDirection Optional The direction to search xlNext,
Ok
xlPrevious
 Parameter Type Description Values

MatchCase Optional If search is case True or False

sensitive

MatchByte Optional Used for double byte True or False

languages

SearchFormat Optional Allow searching by True or False

format. The format is
set using
Application.FindFormat

Important Note about Find Parameters

Keep the following in mind as it can cause a lot of frustration when using Find.

As you can see from the table most of the VBA Find parameters are optional. As we said
earlier, if you don’t set a Find parameter it uses the existing setting.

For example, if you set the LookIn parameter to xlComments, it will search for a value in
comments only. The next time you run Find(either from the Dialog or from VBA) the
existing LookIn setting will be Comments.

The following code shows an example of this

' Search in comments only

Range("A1:A5").Find "John", LookIn:=xlComments
' Will search comments as this is the existing setting
Range("A1:A5").Find "John"

' Search in formulas only

Range("A1:A5").Find "John", LookIn:=xlFormulas
' Will search formulas as this is the existing setting
Range("A1:A5").Find "John"

We useThis
cookies to ensure
applies to thethat we give youLookIn,
parameters the best LookAt,
experience on our website.and
SearchOrder, If you continue to use this site we will
MatchByte.
assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 The Find Return Value
If the search item is found then Find returns the cell with the value. That is, it returns a
Range type of one cell.

If the search item is not found then Find returns an object set to Nothing.

In the following examples, you will see how to deal with the return value.

How to do a Simple Find

Let’s start with a simple example of the VBA Find. You need three things when using the
Find function

1. The Range to search

2. The value you are searching for
3. The Range to store the returned cell

Let’s take the following sample data

We are going to search for the text “Jena” in the cells A1 to A5.

The following code searches for “Jena”. When it finds “Jena”, it then places the cell in the

We usergFound variable.
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assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 ' Find the name Jena in the range A1:A5
Dim rgFound As Range
Set rgFound = Range("A1:A5").Find("Jena")

' Print cell address to Immediate Window(Ctrl + G)

Debug.Print rgFound.Address

The above code shows the most basic search you can do. If this is your first time using the
VBA Find function then I recommend you practice with a simple example like this.

If you want to try these examples you can download the workbook from the top of this
post.

When the Value is not Found

When you use the VBA Find function, there will be times when you do not find a match.
You need to handle this in your code or you will get the following error when you try to use
the returned range

The following code will give this error if the text “John” is not found in the range A1 to A5

Set rgFound = Range("A1:A5").Find("John")

' Shows Error if John was not found

Debug.Print rgFound.Address
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assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 What we need to do is check the return value like the following code shows

Set rgFound= Range("A1:A5").Find("John")

If rgFound Is Nothing Then

Debug.Print "Name was not found."
Else
Debug.Print "Name found in :" & rgFound.Address
End If

Using After with Find

The After parameter is used if you want to start the search from a particular cell. When, the
Excel Find Dialog is used, the active cell is considered the After cell. In other words, this cell
is the starting point for the search. In VBA, if no After parameter is specified then the
search starts at the top-left cell of the range.

Example 1 Without After

Let’s look at the following code.

Set cell = Range("A1:A6").Find("Rachal")

Find will return the cell A2 as this is where the first “Rachal” is found.

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Ok
 Example 2 Using After
In the next example, we use after. We are telling VBA to start the search for “Rachal” after
cell A2

Set cell = Range("A1:A6").Find("Rachal", After:=Range("A2"))

This will return the cell A6

Example 3 Wrapping Around

If a match is not found then the search will “wrap around”. This means it will go back to the
start of the range.

In the following example, we are looking for Drucilla. We start our search After cell A2. Find
will search from A3 to A6 and then will move to A1.

So the following code will return A1 as there is no text “Drucilla” from A3 to A6:

Set cell = Range("A1:A6").Find("Drucilla", After:=Range("A2"))

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Ok
 The search order for this example was A4, A5, A6, A1.

You can try these example for yourself by downloading the workbook from the top of the
post.

Using LookIn with Find

Using LookIn allows you to search in Values, Formulas or Comments.

Important Note: When a cell has text only, this text is considered a formula AND a value.
See the table below for details

Cell Contains Result LookIn value is

Apple Apple Value and Formula

="App" & "le"' Apple Value only

=LEFT("Apple",4)' Appl Formula only

We are going to use the following sample data.

A2 Contains “Apple” as a value only

A3 Contains “Apple” as a formula only
A4 Contains “Apple” in the comment only

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Ok
 The code below searches for “Apple” in the different types: value, formula, threaded
comment and note.

To see a working example of this code you can download the source code from the top of
this post.

' Searches in value, formula, threaded comment and note.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/excel-vba-find/
Sub UseLookIn()

' Finds A2
Dim rgFound As Range
Set rgFound = shLookin.Range("A1:A5").Find("Apple", LookIn:=xlVal
Debug.Print "Found 'Apple' as value in: " & rgFound.Address

' Finds A3
Set rgFound = shLookin.Range("A1:A5").Find("Apple", LookIn:=xlFor
Debug.Print "Found 'Apple' as formula in: " & rgFound.Address

' Finds A4
Set rgFound = shLookin.Range("A1:A5").Find("Apple", LookIn:=xlCom
Debug.Print "Found 'Apple' as comment threaded in: " & rgFound.Ad

' Finds A5
Set rgFound = shLookin.Range("A1:A5").Find("Apple", LookIn:=xlNot
Debug.Print
We use cookies "Found
to ensure that we give you'Apple' as note
the best experience on in: " & rgFound.Address
our website. If you continue to use this site we will
assume that you are happy with it.
End Sub Ok
 Important note that I have used xlCommentsThreaded for the third one as threaded
comments are used in Office 365. If you are using an older version that doesn’t have
threaded comments then use xlComments.

Using LookAt with Find

Using the LookAt function is pretty straightforward.

1. xlWhole means the search value must match the entire cell contents.
2. xlPart means the search value only has to match part of the cell.

The following example has “Apple” as part of the cell contents in A2 and it is the full
contents in cell A3.

The first Find in the following code finds “Apple” in A2. The second Find is looking for a full
match so finds A3.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseLookAt()

Dim cell As Range

' Finds A2
Set cell = Range("A1:A3").Find("Apple", Lookat:=xlPart)
Debug.Print cell.Address

' Finds A3
Set cell = Range("A1:A3").Find("Apple", Lookat:=xlWhole)
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Debug.Print cell.Address
assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 End Sub

You can try these example for yourself by downloading the workbook from the top of the
post.

Using SearchOrder with Find

The SearchOrder parameter allows us to search by row or by column. In the following
sample data we have two occurrences of the text “Elli”.

If we search by row we will find the “Elli” in B2 first. This is because we search in the order
row 1, then row 2 etc.

If we search by column we will find the “Elli” in A5 first. This is because we search in the
order column A, the Column B etc.

The following code shows an example of using the SearchOrder with this sample data

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseSearchOrder()

Dim cell As Range

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' Finds B2 assume that you are happy with it.
Set cell = Range("A1:B6").Find("Elli",
Ok SearchOrder:=xlRows)
Debug.Print cell.Address
 ' Finds A5
Set cell = Range("A1:B6").Find("Elli", SearchOrder:=xlColumns)
Debug.Print cell.Address

End Sub

Using SearchDirection with Find

SearchDirection allows you to search forward or backward. So imagine you have the range
A1:A7. Searching using xlNext will go in the order

A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, A7

Searching using xlPrevious will go in the order

A7, A6, A5, A4, A3, A2, A1

Using xlNext with the sample data will return A2 as this where it finds the first match.
Using xlPrevious will return A6.

' NOTE: Underscore allows breaking up a line

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseSearchDirection()
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Dim cell As Range assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 ' Finds A2
Set cell = shData.Range("A1:A7") _
.Find("Elli", SearchDirection:=xlNext)
Debug.Print cell.Address

' Finds A6
Set cell = shData.Range("A1:A7") _
.Find("Elli", SearchDirection:=xlPrevious)
Debug.Print cell.Address

End Sub

Using xlPrevious with After

It you use the After parameter with xlPrevious then it will start before from the After cell.
So if we set the After cell to be A6 then the search order will be

A5,A4,A3,A2,A1,A7,A6.

The following code shows an example of this

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseSearchDirectionAfter()

Dim cell As Range

' Finds A2
Set cell = shData.Range("A1:A7").Find("Elli" _
, After:=Range("A6"), SearchDirection:=xlPrevious)
Debug.Print cell.Address

' Finds A6
Set cell = shData.Range("A1:A7").Find("Elli" _
, After:=Range("A7"), SearchDirection:=xlPrevious)
Debug.Print cell.Address

End Sub
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Ok
 Using MatchCase with Find
The MatchCase parameter is used to determine if the case of the letters matters in the
search. It can be set to True or False.

True – the case of the letters must match

False – the case of the letters does not matter

The following sample list has two entries for “Elli”. The second has a small letter e

The following code examples show the result of setting MatchCase to True and False

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseMatchCase()

Dim cell As Range

' Finds A2
Set cell = Range("A1:B6").Find("elli", MatchCase:=False)
Debug.Print cell.Address

' Finds A6
Set cell = Range("A1:B6").Find("elli", MatchCase:=True)
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Debug.Print cell.Address
assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 End Sub

Using MatchByte with Find

The MatchByte parameter is used for languages with a double-byte character set. These
are languages such as Chinese/Japanese/Korean.

If you are not using them then this parameter is not relevant. They are used as follows

True means to match only double-byte characters with double-byte characters.

False means to double-byte characters can match with single or double-byte characters.

Using the WildCard

We can use the asterisk symbol(*) as a wild card when searching for text. The asterisk
represents one or more characters.
For example
“T*” will find any word that starts with T.
“To*” will find any word that starts with To.
“*y” will find any word that ends with y.
“*ey” will find any word that ends with ey.

The code below shows examples of using the wildcard based on this data:

' Examples of using the wild card

' https://excelmacromastery.com/excel-vba-find/
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Sub WildCard()
assume that you are happy with it.

Dim rgFound As Range Ok

 ' Finds Tom in A2
Set rgFound = shWildCard.Range("A1:A6").Find("T*")
Debug.Print rgFound.Value & " was found in cell " & rgFound.Addre

' Finds Tim in A5

Set rgFound = shWildCard.Range("A1:A6").Find("Ti*")
Debug.Print rgFound.Value & " was found in cell " & rgFound.Addre

' Finds Tommy in A4

Set rgFound = shWildCard.Range("A1:A6").Find("*my")
Debug.Print rgFound.Value & " was found in cell " & rgFound.Addre

' Finds Ellen in A3

Set rgFound = shWildCard.Range("A1:A6").Find("*len*")
Debug.Print rgFound.Value & " was found in cell " & rgFound.Addre

' Finds Helen in A6

Set rgFound = shWildCard.Range("A1:A6").Find("*elen*")
Debug.Print rgFound.Value & " was found in cell " & rgFound.Addre

End Sub

Using SearchFormat with Find

Search Format is a bit different than the other parameters. It allows you to search for a cell
format such as font type or cell color.

You need to set the format first by using the Application.FindFormat property. Then you
set SearchFormat to True to search for this format.

In the following sample data, we have two cells formatted. Cell A5 is set to Bold and Cell A6
has the fill colour set to red.

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assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 The following code searches for the bold cell:

' Find the cell which has a bold format

' https://excelmacromastery.com/excel-vba-find/
Sub UseSearchFormat()

Dim findText As String

findText = "Elli"

' Clear previous formats and set new format

Application.FindFormat.Clear
Application.FindFormat.Font.Bold = True

' Finds A2
Dim rgFound As Range
Set rgFound = Range("A1:A6").Find(findText, SearchFormat:=False)
Debug.Print "Found '" & findText & "' in cell: " & rgFound.Addres

' Finds A5
Set rgFound = Range("A1:A6").Find(findText, SearchFormat:=True)
Debug.Print "Found '" & findText & "' in cell: " & rgFound.Addres

Application.FindFormat.Clear

End Sub

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assume that you are happy with it.
Using Wild Card with FormatOk
 You can search for a cell based on the format only. In other words, the value in the cell is
ignored in the search. You do this by placing “*” in the search string.

The following code searches for a cell that is formatted – the cell color in this example is set
to red. The contents of the cell do not matter:

' Find the cell which is formatted - contents do not matter

' https://excelmacromastery.com/excel-vba-find/
Sub UseSearchFormatWild()

' Clear previous formats and set new format

Application.FindFormat.Clear
Application.FindFormat.Interior.Color = rgbRed

' Finds A2 as it ignores the format and finds the first cell with
Dim rgFound As Range
Set rgFound = shSearchFormat.Range("A1:B6").Find("*", SearchForma
Debug.Print "Found format in cell: " & rgFound.Address

' Finds A5 as this is first cell with the format set to interior
Set rgFound = shSearchFormat.Range("A1:B6").Find("*", SearchForma
Debug.Print "Found format in cell: " & rgFound.Address

Application.FindFormat.Clear

End Sub

Important – Clearing Format

When you set the FindFormat attributes they remain in place until you set them again. This
is something to watch out for.

For example, imagine you set the format to bold and then use Find. Then you set the
format to font size 12 and use Find again. The search will look for cells where the font is
bold AND of size 12.

Therefore, it is a good idea to clear the format before you use it as I have done in the
We useabove examples.
cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will
assume that you are happy with it.

Application.FindFormat.Clear Ok
 You can see we used this in the second SearchFormat example above.

Multiple Searches
In many cases you will want to search for multiple occurrences of the same value. To do
this we use the Find function first. Then we use the .FindNext function to find the next
item.

.FindNext searches based on the setting we used in the Find. The following code shows a
simple example of finding the first and second occurrences of the text “Elli”.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub SearchNext()

Dim cell As Range

' Find first - A2
Set cell = Range("A1:A9").Find("Elli")
Debug.Print "Found: " & cell.Address

' Find second - A5

Set cell = Range("A1:A9").FindNext(cell)
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Debug.Print "Found:assume
" & cell.Address
that you are happy with it.
Ok
 End Sub

Sometimes you won’t know how many occurrences there is. In this case we use a loop to
keep searching until we have found all the items.

We use Find to get the first item. If we find an item we then use a Do Loop with .FindNext
to find the rest of the occurrences.

FindNext will wrap around. That is, after it finds A9 it will continue the search at A1.
Therefore, we store the address of the first cell we find. When FindNext returns this cell
again we know we have found all the items.

The following code will find all the occurrences of Elli

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub MultipleSearch()

' Get name to search

Dim name As String: name = "Elli"

' Get search range

Dim rgSearch As Range
Set rgSearch = Range("A1:A9")

Dim cell As Range

Set cell = rgSearch.Find(name)

' If not found then exit

If cell Is Nothing Then
Debug.Print "Not found"
Exit Sub
End If

' Store first cell address

Dim firstCellAddress As String
firstCellAddress = cell.Address
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assume that you
' Find all cells containing are happy with it.
Elli
Do Ok
 Debug.Print "Found: " & cell.Address
Set cell = rgSearch.FindNext(cell)
Loop While firstCellAddress <> cell.Address

End Sub

The output from this code is

Found: $A$2
Found: $A$5
Found: $A$8

Finding the Last Cell Containing Data

A very common task in VBA is finding the last cell that contains data in a row or colum. This
does not use the VBA Find function. Instead, we use the following code to find the last row
with data

' Find the last row with data in column A

LastRow = Cells(Rows.Count, 1).End(xlUp).Row

' Find the last row with data in column C

LastRow = Cells(Rows.Count, 3).End(xlUp).Row

To find the last column with data we use similar code

' Find the last column with data in row 1

lLastCol = Cells(1, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column

' Find the last column with data in row 3

lLastCol = Cells(3, Columns.Count).End(xlToLeft).Column

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assume that you are happy with it.
Finding Cells with Patterns
Ok
 If you want to find cells with certain patterns then you have to use the Like operator rather
than Find.

For example, to find the all the names starting with E you could use the following code

' Print all names starting with the letter E

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub PatternMatch()

Dim cell As Range

' Go through each cell in range
For Each cell In Range("A1:A20")
' Check the pattern
If cell Like "[E]*" Then
Debug.Print cell
End If
Next

End Sub

If you want to know more about this then check out Comparing Strings using Pattern
Matching.

To see a real-world example of using pattern matching check out Example 3: Check if a
filename is valid.

An Alternative to using VBA Find

If you are expecting a large number of hits then using an array is a better option. You can
read a range of cells to an array very quickly and efficiently.

The following code reads the cell values to an array and then reads through the array to
count the items.

' https://excelmacromastery.com/
Sub UseArrayToCount()
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assume that you are happy with it.
Dim arr As Variant Ok
 ' read cell range to array
arr = Sheet2.Range("A1:B25").Value

Dim name As Variant, cnt As Long

' Go through the array
For Each name In arr
' Count in the name 'Ray' is found
If name = "Ray" Then
cnt = cnt + 1
End If
Next name

Debug.Print "The number of occurrences was: " & cnt

End Sub

If you want to find out more about arrays then check out the post The Complete Guide to
Using Arrays in Excel VBA.

Find and Replace

To do a find and Replace you can use the Replace function. It is very similar to using the
Find function.

The replace function is outside the scope of this post although a lot of what you read here
can be used with it. You can see the details of it at Microsoft – VBA Replace Function

What’s Next?
Free VBA Tutorial If you are new to VBA or you want to sharpen your existing VBA skills
then why not try out the The Ultimate VBA Tutorial.
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Related Training: Get full access to the Excel VBA training webinars and all the tutorials.
assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 (NOTE: Planning to build or manage a VBA Application? Learn how to build 10 Excel VBA
applications from scratch.)

131 Comments
← Older Comments
Vishal Navinchandra Shah on March 2, 2020 at 8:02 am

Hi Paul,
Your knowledge is really helped me a lot, and you are always the first go to
resource for me.

Function fnBonus(empcd)
fnBonus = Range(“tbBonus[Empcode]”).Find(empcd).Offset(0, 1).Value
End Function

The above code is not taking the first record from the following table
Empcode Bonus
1 2900
2 9500
3 2000
4 600
5 4300
6 4200
7 3500
8 1000
9 2700
10 5900

so, fnBonus(1) gives result as 5900

I thought the following would solve the problem, but it did not and results
into an #VALUE! error

fnBonus = Range(“tbBonus[Empcode]”).Find(empcd,
After:=Range(“tbBonus[[#Headers],[Empcode]]”)).Offset(0, 1).Value
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Any idea what Iassume
may bethat
missing here.
you are happy with it.
Ok
 Love your work, keep it up.

Vishal

Reply
stephan on March 27, 2020 at 12:36 am
it would be nice to discuss tables. Find for tables does not return a range
but rather the cells value

Reply

Peter on April 11, 2020 at 2:21 am

I want to call the Find and Replace dialog when an Excel workbook opens. I
see application.dialogs but what index do I use? Excel reports a count of
1430 dialogs but when I scroll through the list, I can’t see one that looks or
works like Find and Replace.

Reply

Peter on April 11, 2020 at 2:26 am

I found the answer to my question here:

https://www.mrexcel.com/board/threads/vba-for-find-dialog-
box.71530/

Reply

Stefano Gatto on May 7, 2020 at 8:12 pm

Hello.
Try formatting a cell with #,##0 and enter inside of it formula =200+800
Then try to find 1000 *by value* and let me know if you find that cell.
What do you think?
Thank you for your time & best regards,
Stefano Gatto
[email protected]
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Geneva, Switzerland
Ok
PS: identical behavior for VBA’s FIND method
 Reply

r on December 15, 2021 at 4:44 am

If you are using VBA, why not evaluate the cell value. If the cell value
= 1000 do X else do Y ?

Reply
Vijay Verma on May 25, 2020 at 4:58 pm

If data in A1:A10 and I try to find something which is in A1, then it gives the
answer as 2.
For example A1:A10 contains below and if I try to find “a”, it gives an answer
of 2 rather than 1
Ws.Cells(4, “E”) = Ws.Columns(“A”).Find(what:=”a”, LookIn:=xlValues,
LookAt:=xlWhole, _
SearchOrder:=xlRows, searchdirection:=xlPrevious, MatchCase:=False).Row
a
a
b
b
b
c
c
d
d
d

Reply

Rick van den Bosch on August 21, 2020 at 10:29 am

Hi Vijay,

In this case you’re searching backward and start in cell A10, then A9,
A8 … A3, A2, A1. The first match found for “a” is then in cell A2. Your
problem will be solved when you change
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“searchdirection:=xlPrevious” towith
assume that you are happy “searchdirection:=xlNext”.
it. Then it
will start searching from the first cell in your range.
Ok
 https://excelmacromastery.com/excel-vba-
find/#Using_SearchDirection_with_Find

Reply

Michael Marburger on November 4, 2021 at 4:15 pm

I have a similar problem and am an experienced VBA
programmer. I have a bank statement export with no
headers and dates descending. Like 11/3/21 for 15 rows,
then repeating 11/2/21, etc. LastDateLoaded is date field
with “11/3/2021”. a VBA find:

Find seems to be acting like there is an assumed header. I’m

going bonkers.

WSwfb.Range(“A1:A19”).Find(LastDateLoaded,
searchdirection:=xlNext).Row ALWAYS returns 2. It should
return 1.

WSwfb.Range(“A1:A1”).Find(“11/3/2021”,
searchdirection:=xlNext).Row DOES return 1.

Reply
Paulo Vinicius on June 21, 2020 at 8:33 pm
I downloaded the spreadsheet. Do not execute any of the codes, what can
it be?

Reply

Paul Kelly on June 23, 2020 at 2:58 am

Hi Paulo, I’m not clear on your question.

Reply

Lisa
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weJuly
give30,
you2020 at 1:21
the best pm on our website. If you continue to use this site we will
experience
assume that you are happy with it.
Hi,
Ok
I am new at VBA. I am trying g to figure out a way in which to find a
 matching value in one cell of a column. Specifically, i need to find the value
in B2, and have excel look for that value throughout that column. Then, if
the value is the same throughout column B, then the procedure can end. If
there is a different value in column B, then i need excel to create a new
worksheet.

Reply

Paul Kelly on August 3, 2020 at 10:02 am

You can use worksheetFunction.CountA and CountIf to check if the
values are the same throughout the column.

Reply
Mathieu on August 10, 2020 at 4:01 pm
Hi Paul,
I would like to know if it is possible to return the amount of result for a
search. I know it is possible with excel dialog box but I don’t find
information about that for VBA, do you know if it is possible?
Thank you.

Reply

Damir on October 7, 2020 at 8:10 am

I have a formula writing “” if the variables are not available. When copied to
a new workbook those calls are empty but not really.
Is there some way to find those cells?

Reply

Andrew Cormie on January 18, 2021 at 6:24 pm

Hi, I downloaded your VBA find Source Code.xlsm. On the Main page there
is a message – point 2 says Follow the instructions in each module to run
the code. But there are no instructions. Looking in the actual modules I see
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they are all supposed to run by Control+G, but although something seems
assume that you are happy with it.
to happen nothing is displayed. I suppose I am missing out some simple
Ok
thing I should be doing.
 Reply

Paul Kelly on January 21, 2021 at 7:11 am

Click in the sub and press F5 to run the code. The results will appear
in the Immediate Window.

Reply
Liang Li on February 10, 2021 at 12:35 am

Hi Paul,
I am fairly sure that the wildcard character “*” represents ZERO or more
characters, and not one or more characters as you have currently
documented. I.e., “Apple*” will match “Apple”.

Reply

Liang Li on February 10, 2021 at 12:40 am

Hi Paul — Also, perhaps consider documenting “?” as well? It matches
exactly one character. I’m not sure if there are any other wildcards.

Reply

Scott Griffin on March 21, 2021 at 3:14 am

HI Paul,

I’ve been using Excel for many years to build financial models, and have
only just now decided to dip my toes into VBA – a long overdue step.

I was trying to get a Chart’s visibility to toggle true/false based on a cell that
has an on/off switch in it, the cell simply is set to either the word On, or Off.
Your excellent video https://youtu.be/TYyPrqqFgVg for changing the colours
of cell feels like where I should be heading, however for the life of me I can’t
edit your code to get it working. I’ve got a basic macro working to turn it
on/off, but can’t tie in the dynamic aspect. 2 hours of googling feels like
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enough…. assume that you are happy with it.
Ok
 Wondering if you can help at all, and also, do you have any suggestions
where a good starting point would be. I purchased Benninga’s Financial
Modeling – however not sure if that’s the best starting point. Any thoughts
would be really helpful, and of course, appreciate if you’re too busy.

Thanks for providing the YouTube content – have found your vids to be
clearer than most.

Cheers,

Scott

Reply
Joey G on June 23, 2021 at 8:28 pm

Hi there,
I’m having trouble doing a more specific search. I’m wanting to find the
rows where a power supply is located, where the value of the cell always
starts with “PS”. A cell may look like “PS 90-264VAC 12VDC 20W”. With that,
there are other cells that contain the letters “PS”, like “CLAMPS”, “PHILLIPS
SCREW”, “KEPS NUT”, etc. that I don’t want to be returned from my search.

Is there a way to search for “PS” And “VAC” And “W”, or a way to search so
that “PS” must be the first two characters?

Thanks,

Joey

Reply

Paul Kelly on July 1, 2021 at 1:50 am

You can use wildcards like * and ?

PS* – All strings that start with PS.

*PS – All string ending in PS
etc.

Reply
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assume that you are happy with it.
hashem hassani on July 29,Ok2021 at 3:45 am
 thanks a lot
I need to know how to use the method::
worksheetfuncion.find
thanks advance

Reply
Hiro Jensen on October 14, 2021 at 4:58 pm

Hi Paul,

Is there a way to set the ‘Within’ parameter in the ‘Find and Replace’ dialog
box using VBA?

I found out about an Excel bug the hard way. If I happen to have my ‘Within’
parameter set to ‘Workbook’, the following command will replace all
occurrences of “Apples” in all the worksheets (it ignores the Worksheets(1)
range and uses the ‘Within: Workbook’ parameter

Worksheets(1).Rows(10).Replace What:=”Apples”, Replacement:=”Oranges”

If you can confirm the same issue, maybe you can add this warning as well
in your guide.

Thanks for an extensive guide with clear examples.

Reply

Martin on January 21, 2022 at 7:45 am

In the VBA Find Parameters, do we have a parameter for “Look Within” so

that one can specify whether to look in the workbook or the worksheet?

Reply

Rick R on January 29, 2022 at 3:19 pm

Hi Paul,
This article on the Find command was the best I found in my search. Very
well done !
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Question, you state in the beginning of the article the following:
assume that you are happy with it.
“For example, if you set the LookIn parameter to xlComments, it will search
Ok
 for a value in comments only. The next time you run Find(either from the
Dialog or from VBA) the existing LookIn setting will be Comments.”

Does this hold true just for the Find command in the module or is this true
for the entire project. For example, if in one module I may have searched
for something in Comments. In another for a value in a cell. If I exit one
module and code takes me into another module, will the parameter set in
the previous module follow me into the next module ?

Thank you for your help.

Rick

Reply
Charles A Rabalais on July 17, 2022 at 3:36 pm
Unless I’m missing something, you don’t mention this real world situation:
FIND all values in a column that contain x then FIND all values within that
first set x of found values that contain a string y.

FIND X —> then FIND y within x.

cr 🙂
Reply

Charles A Rabalais on August 21, 2022 at 7:15 pm

Hi Paul.
How would you use FIND with Boolean operators to find all values
between the ‘OR’ operator

and all values with two or more parameters,

i.e.,
‘last days’ AND ‘time of the end’

(This is a very common problem, yet I have not seen any solution from
anyone anywhere at any time.)

Reply
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assume that you are happy with it.
Jim on February 14, 2023 at 7:16
Ok pm
 I love your content, I wish I had found it sooner. There is one point I am
confused on, you say above:
“Important Note: When a cell has text only, this text is considered a formula
AND a value. See the table below for details”
And in your code for finding the last cell: “FindLastCell(rg As Range) As
Range”, you use the constant LookIn:=xlFormulas. Your code works of
course but leaves me confused. All the documentation I find says that using
xlFormulas will constrain the Find method to only look in cells that have
formulas. Why did you use Lookin:=xlFormulas instead of Lookin:=xlValues
and why does your code work? Thanks

Reply
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