Here is the interview with John Walkenbach. John is famous excel personality. He has authored 50 excel books, numerous articles and has one of most popular excel related sites – spreadsheetpage.
PS: Thanks to PHD readers for suggesting interview questions to ask John. I really appreciate your help in putting this together. Unfortunately, I couldnt ask all the questions, but I have included as many as possible.
Q: Excel 2003 or 2007?
I have both versions installed on my system. I keep 2003 around only to answer questions that are specific to that version. Although it has some problems, I much prefer Excel 2007. A lot of it is aesthetic. Excel 2007 looks good, Excel 2003 doesn’t. And besides, I have a difficult time remembering where the commands are located on the 2003 menu system.
Your 3 favorite formulas?
I hate these kinds of questions. My favorite formula is the one that gets the job done — so it changes all the time. But if you ask what is the most impressive formula I’ve ever written, it would be that multicell array formula that displays a calendar for any month. I spent hours working on that one. Click on the link to see it.
If I were going to be buried, I would like that formula inscribed on my tombstone. But it would probably be inscribed wrong, and everyone would wonder why the formula on my tombstone produces a #NAME! error.
Which books / resources would you recommend for an excel newbie, excel intermediate user and excel pro?
I can only recommend my own books because I’ve never read any other Excel books. I’ve paged through a few, but I’ve actually never read one. So…
Newbie: Excel Bible
Intermediate: Excel Bible
Pro: Excel Formulas
Is there a point in learning excel, in the era of web spreadsheets and powerful drag-and-drop analytical apps?
Absolutely. Excel is going to be with us for a long time. Count on it.
Excel is great – we would all agree – but what is the worst & best use of Excel you have seen?
I’m of the opinion that there is no “bad” use for Excel. If you do something that’s not normally done in Excel — and it works and is adequately scalable for your needs — that’s great. It’s certainly possible that more efficient methods exist, but that needs to be balanced with the time need to learn how to use those more efficient methods. For example, I keep my customer data in an Excel workbook. Probably 90% of the experts would tell me to use Access or some other database software for this application. But it works just fine for me, and it means I don’t have to spend time learning to be proficient in Access.
What is the future of Excel & spreadsheet software?
I have no idea. I don’t spend much time thinking about such things. Microsoft often surprises me with what that put into Excel. But they also frustrate me by not doing things that they should have done years ago. It’s nice that Excel is finally getting some competition once again, in the form of open source and online spreadsheet apps.
How did you learn to write such clear and easy to understand code?
I had a few programming courses in college, but I don’t think they really helped much in terms of what I do today. I think I just have a knack for putting myself in the shoes of others, and explaining things as clearly and concisely as possible. My writing is based on two guiding principles: Keep it simple, and teach through illustrative examples that can be expanded upon by the reader.
When Excel 5 came out, I was excited about the VBA programming language, so I gave myself an assignment to learn it: Write a set of Excel utilities. And that was PUP 1.0. The first version was loosely based on the XLM-based “Barnes Utilities.” PUP is now in version 7, and I’m still learning things.
Your tips for people learning VBA?
Start with something simple, but also meaningful to you. Then, gradually expand it — testing at every step of the way.
When you need to use an unfamiliar property or method, create a small “experimental” procedure for testing. Play around with it until you’re comfortable. Then incorporate it you’re your actual project.
You should also take the time to learn how to use tools such as the Object Browser, the Immediate Window, and Step mode. And always declare your variables.
When trying to display a simple dot using shapes, I only found the “msoval” object to do this, but with poor results… is there a hidden “dot” object in VBA ?
This seems to work OK:
Sub MakeDot()
Dim Dot As Shape
Set Dot = ActiveSheet.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeOval, 20, 20, 4, 4)
With Dot
.Fill.ForeColor.SchemeColor = 8
.Line.Visible = msoFalse
End With
End Sub
Is there a way to add tooltips to shapes (when mouseover for example ?) ?
Not officially, but you can sort of fake it.
Create the shape. Then run a VBA procedure that assigns an empty string to the shape’s Hyperlink.Address property, and specifies a ScreenTip for the hyperlink. For example:
Sub SetTootipForShape()
Dim s As Shape
Set s = ActiveSheet.Shapes(1)
s.Hyperlink.Address = ""
s.Hyperlink.ScreenTip = "This shape has a tooltip"
End Sub
When the mouse pointer moves over the shape, the tooltip appears. Clicking the shape has no effect.
Note that you cannot assign an empty string manually, via the Hyperlink dialog box.
Are you still cold-brewing coffee? If not, how come?
Off and on. I broke my original cold brew glass jar, so that put an end to it for a while. Then I bought another one and used it for a while. I’ll probably go back to it at some point, just because it’s so convenient to have fresh-tasting coffee without having to brew a pot.
When will we see the introduction of the “banjo” chart in Excel?
As soon as Jon Peltier stops writing about charts. He would certainly disapprove of a banjo chart because of its resemblance to a pie chart. For people who don’t read my J-Walk Blog… I’ve become obsessed with learning old-time clawhammer style banjo during the past three years.
Your tips for bloggers of the world
I have nothing new to add. Just same old stuff: Post a lot, understand your readers, pay attention to layout and design, go easy on the ads, avoid all of those useless widgets, and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Your advice for people who make excel add-ins, excel based products.
I think the most common question I get from would-be add-in programmers is: “How can I protect my work so it won’t be stolen.” The answer is, you can’t. There will always be people who want to steal your work, and they will. But, for the most part, these people would not have purchased your product anyway. With my PUP add-in, I make the VBA code available for a small fee. Amazingly, I haven’t seen any other commercial add-ins that have incorporated my code. They might exist; I just haven’t seen them.
Thank you John for your informative and entertaining interview.
Tell me who else should be interviewed and I will ask them.
Also, Read our earlier interview with Charley Kyd.
37 Responses to “Quickly Change Formulas Using Find / Replace”
Chandoo,
this is a really cool stuff what I use quite often. In addtion this method also could be a good choice to switch the reference type of the formulas from relative to absolute or vice versa. (just simply replace the $ in the same way).
Andras
@Andras: you are right, we can use find / replace to change references, reference types etc. Now, only if they had regex in find/ replace, we could so much more 🙂
@Tony Rose: Thank you. This is very useful and powerful feature. I even use it for cleaning up data. While formulas are good, they are not the solution for every problem. Often when I need more powerful cleanup / changing, I copy paste the stuff to text editors like notepad++ and then use their find/replace to do the dirty task.
What if i have to change the formula from ='Analysis'!C1 to 'Analysis 1'!C1?
I tried doing it using Find /Replace but could't. Encountered some errors.
And is there a way to change this using VBA???
Hi,
Did you ever get a reply to this?
Thanks
Ollie
to make your life easier, suggest you to avoid (Space) in worksheet names whenever possible. Consider (underscore) instead.
As the first formula wouldn't have the single apostrophes (since there's no space) need to include that in replace. So, search for:
Analysis
and replace with:
'Analysis 1'
This could be the most useful tips I've seen in a while. I use this all the time and can instantly change 400 formulas with a few clicks. Like so many other functions in Excel, I don't know what I would do without this one.
Keep 'em coming!
[...] on formulas: 5 areas where mouse kicks keyboard’s butt | Edit formulas in bulk using Find / Replace | Excel Formulas Online [...]
THANKS BRO
You, sir, are a god among men...
This is really cool. Your just save me hours of work. Thanks.
Thanks so much for this fix! It saved me tons of work. I'm muddling my way through and this really helped!
Oh... My... God!
This tip just saved me about 2 hours every month! I can't believe how easy it is to use. Now, can somebody tell me who I should call to get a refund for the previous 100 hours I spent manually changing formulas cell by cell?
Thanks so much!
THANK YOU!!!
THANK YOU!!!!
You saved me hours, I had a sheet that has more than 500 formulas, and i needed to replace the year in all of them, you saved me hours
Awesome info on replacing cell addresses in formulas. I have never heard about Ctrl+` before. Thank you!
I have something inside a formula like:
=sum(A1, A2*10) all over I now need to get rid of the *10 {=sume(A1, A2)} I thought to use the find replace trick above but with a blank in the replace but it then outputs just zeros. I thought I could trick it by doing *1 but then it just turns into =*1) with none of my references. Does anyone have an idea how to do this?
The Ctrl+ trick is cool.
@T
Instead of replacing with a blank try replacing
*10)
with
)
Thank you! This literally will save me hours and hours of time, and that's without losing my sanity in the process!
I have Sheet(1), Sheet(2), Sheet(3), etc ... Sheet(100).
Then there's a summary tab where I want to recap information on all those different sheets. Is there anyway to create a formula on the Summary tab to get ='Sheet(1)'!B$29 copied down for all 100 sheets without having to change each sheet # within the formula by hand?
@Brigitte
If you have a list of the sheet names in A2:A100
In B2: =INDIRECT("'"&A2&"'!$B$29")
Copy down
or if you don't have a list of the sheets names you can make it up on the fly
=INDIRECT("'sheet("&ROW()-1&")'!$B$29")
Copy down
Thanks for the suggestion. However, I copied your formula right back to my file and it didn't work. So I did it another way. I put the tab/cell reference in one cell and then did an =INDIRECT() to capture that information.
K2="'Sheet("&L2&")'!B$29" which has a value of 'Sheet(1)'!B$29
B2=INDIRECT(K2) which now has a value of 40 (contents on Sheet(1).
Thank you!!!!
Thank you ..
Hi, Out of all the formulae, I wish to replace the formula which has generated 0 value with blank space? I am unable to do it with find and replace function,
Please suggest.
Thanks.
Chandoo, you literally just saved me about 2 hours of work. I had a document with a daily report in two formats. The second formate just linked to all the appropriate cells in the other format (different sheets). This was 180 references that needed to be changed and I had to make this for a 4 week period (aka 28 different sheets at 180 references to change per sheet).
Thanks so much.
I have tried this way and without using the Ctrl-` formula view
Either way, I am trying to do something simple, but it won't let me.
I have a bunch of cells with a simple math formula like
=-(0.5*20)
various values in each cell, multiplied by 20
I simply want to change the multiplier globally from 20 to 25. But when I tell it to find *20 and replace it with *25, it replaces the entire cell contents with *25, rather than just replacing the *20 portion of the cell contents.
Can anyone assist with this? Seems so simple, but Excel isn't letting me do it.
Search/Replace 20 or 20) with a cell Reference eg A1 or A1)
Then put the value 25 in A1
By using a * in the search it replaces all the text
how to find a specific cell's value in a column & replace replace it with another cell value i actually need a method to replace a data in ca column and replace with the value i have in a specific cell can i give a [ location ] of data to what i need to find and then give row or column range to where i need to find and the given value & then give a [ location ] of data to what i want to be replace with the find and replace by row & column range & than by specific criteria and than by specific location.
please help.
how to find a specific cell’s value in a column & replace replace it with another cell's value.
i actually need a method to find a specific cell's data in a column and replace it with the value i have in a specific cell.
can i give a [ location ] of data to what i need to find and then give row or column range from where i need to find the given value & then give a [ location ] of data to what i want to be replace with.
find and replace by row & column range & than by specific criteria and than by specific location.
please help.
how to find a specific cell’s value in a column & replace it with another cell’s value.
i actually need a method to find a specific cell’s data in a column and replace it with the value i have in a specific cell.
can i give a [ location ] of data to what i need to find and then give row or column range from where i need to find the given value & then give a [ location ] of data to what i want to be replace with.
"find and replace by row & column range & than by specific criteria and than by specific location."
in more than 100 sheets in entire workbook
please help.
This is a great tool, does anyone knows an easiest way??
I'm working with a system that has over 59000 references... so every time the replace all is activated. I lose an entire day.
i actually needs to find cell number "D12" in column "D" and replace with Cell Number "B8" for example
find what = Cell Number "D12" John McNamara
find Where = in Column "D"
Replace with = Cell Number "B8" Bieber D'Souza
Replace Range = Column "D"
In which Sheet = All Sheets in Work Book (more than 100 Sheets)
Note: in every Sheet Cells Number "D12" & "B8" containing Different Employ Name but the find rang and replace rang are same in every sheet and find what cell number and replace with cell number are same also.
please help!
thank you. saved lot of time.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
Hi, I am trying to figure out how to use RE to find and replace several values in a column. Using find and replace does not work because of the values I am working with. I have a column with hundreds of rows that have a description of several operating systems and other info, which looks like this: Windows Server 2008 R2 Member Server Security Technical Implementation Guide; Windows 2008 Member Server Security Technical Implementation Guide; Solaris 10 10 SPARC SECURITY TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE; and Windows Windows 2003 Member Server Security Technical Implementation Guide.
I need to be able to find and replace (or basically curtail the descriptions) to be Windows 2008 R2; Windows 2008; Windows 2003; and Solaris 10. BUT when I run find and replace with just *2008*, it finds every instance, including the ones with R2 at the end. I need it to only change the ones with 2008 to Windows 2008 and the ones that have 2008 R2 to Windows 2008 R2. I know it is possible, but I have no clue on how to write a macro to do this.
Thanks for your help,
Gerard
Wickedly efficient workaround. Excel really is a powerhouse program, all you have to do is dig into it. Ctl ~ exposes the formulas, and Ctl H allows for the multi edit. Brilliant, Chandoo!