Finding and Replacing in Calc
In spreadsheet documents you can find words, formulae, and styles. You can navigate from one result to the next, or you can highlight all matching cells at once, then apply another format or replace the cell content by other content.
The Find & Replace dialogue box
Cells can contain text or numbers that were entered directly as in a text document. But cells can also contain text or numbers as the result of a calculation. For example, if a cell contains the formula =1+2 it displays the result 3. You must decide whether to search for the 1 respective 2, or to search the 3.
To find formulae or values
You can specify in the Find & Replace dialogue box either to find the parts of a formula or the results of a calculation.
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Choose Edit - Find & Replace to open the Find & Replace dialogue box.
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Click More Options to expand the dialogue box.
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Select "Formulae" or "Values" in the Search in list box.
With "Formulae" you will find all parts of the formulae.
With "Values" you will find the results of the calculations.
Cell contents can be formatted in different ways. For example, a number can be formatted as a currency, to be displayed with a currency symbol. These symbols are included in searches when the Formatted Display search option is activated.
Finding text
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Choose Edit - Find & Replace to open the Find & Replace dialogue box.
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Enter the text to find in the Find text box.
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Either click Find Next or Find All.
When you click Find Next, Calc will select the next cell that contains your text. You can watch and edit the text, then click Find Next again to advance to the next found cell.
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If you closed the dialogue box, you can press a key combination (Ctrl+Shift+F) to find the next cell without opening the dialogue box.
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By default, Calc searches the current sheet. Check the All sheets box to search through all sheets of the document.
When you click Find All, Calc selects all cells that contain your entry. Now you can for example set all found cells to bold, or apply a Cell Style to all at once.
The Navigator
- Choose View - Navigator to open the Navigator window.
The Navigator is the main tool for finding and selecting objects.
Use the Navigator for inserting objects and links within the same document or from other open documents.