Howdy folks. Jeff here. I recently gave a presentation on Excel efficiency to a bunch of analysts, in which – among other things – I’d pointed out that if you ever find yourself having to switch calculation to Manual, there’s probably something wrong with your spreadsheet. Here’s the slide:
This prompted one of the participants to come to me for advise regarding restructuring a spreadsheet with that very problem. This analyst had a file with only 6000 rows of data in it, but the file size was something like 35MB, and after each and every change she had to wait at least a minute for the file to recalculate before she could do something else.
It turns out there were two problems with her files that were easy to resolve.
The Confused range
First, there was a problem with the Used Range – the area within a worksheet that Excel thinks contains all your workings and data. You can find out what this is for each spreadsheet by pushing [Ctrl] + [End], and seeing what cell this takes you to. Hopefully it will take you to the bottom-most, right-most cell that you’ve actually used in the sheet:
But occasionally, you’ll see that it might take you far, far below that cell. Maybe all the way to the very bottom of the grid:
This is bad. Why? Because when Excel saves a file, it includes information about things such as what type of Cell Formatting is used within the used range. If the used range includes millions of cells that aren’t even used, then the information that Excel saves regarding these cells can really blow out the file size. This is exactly what had happened in the case of the spreadsheet concerned. After we reset the used range, the filesize plummeted from 35MB to around 2MB.
Often you can reset the Used Range simply by selecting all the the empty rows under your data, and then deleting them. To do this, select the entire row immediately below your data, then press [Ctrl] + [Down Arrow] to extend the selection right to the bottom of the sheet, then right click and select Delete:
Note that you’ve got to use the Right-Click>DELETE option, NOT the Delete key on the keyboard. Pushing that Delete key does not reset the used range. In fact, this is often why the used range is wrong…it still reflects some data that used to be in the sheet, but that the user subsequently deleted using the keyboard.
When you’ve done this, then push [Ctrl] + [End] again and see where you end up – hopefully at the bottom right corner of your data.
Sometimes this doesn’t fix the problem, and you still find yourself well below your data. In this case, a bit of VBA will usually suffice. I’d suggest putting the below code into your Personal Macro Workbook, for times like this:
Sub ResetUsedRange()
Dim sht As Worksheet
Dim lng As Long
For Each sht In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
lng = sht.UsedRange.Rows.Count
Next
End Sub
To see what to do with this code, read What would James Bond have in his Personal Macro Workbook.
Too much SUMIF
The second problem is that each file contained something like 60,000 SUMIF formulas in them. And each one of these formulas referenced two entire columns, rather than just the 2500 rows that actually contained data. It’s really easy to see just how big a problem you might have, simply by doing a Find All for the name of the particular function you’re after:
You can throw 60,000 VLOOKUPS or IF statements or other run-of-the-mill functions at Excel and it won’t even blink. But 60,000 resource-intensive number-crunching functions such as SUMIF, SUMPRODUCT, COUNTIF etc pointed at very large ranges will cause Excel to flinch, if not shut it’s eyes completely for large periods of time.
That’s because these functions are like Ferrari’s…very powerful, but very expensive. One SUMIF is going to travel very fast down the highway. A few hundred SUMIFS on the same stretch are still going to whiz by pretty fast. Tens of thousands of them are just going to crash in to each other:
(The image above comes from this New York Times article detailing a spectacular traffic pileup in Japan in 2011 that left a highway strewn with the smashed wreckage of eight Ferrari’s, a Lamborghini and three Mercedes sports cars. No-one seriously hurt apart from severely injured pride and a marked increase in insurance premiums the following year.)
Often you can use a PivotTable to do the same thing as a whole bunch of functions like SUMIF, COUNTIF, SUMPRODUCT et cetera. PivotTables are natural aggregation and filtering tools. In this case I could use just one PivotTable to replace those 60,000 SUMIFs, and recalculation time dropped from minutes to milliseconds. Now, reporting on this business process is effortless.
One spreadsheet, two morals
I’ve got two morals to share regarding this.
The first is to keep your eyes peeled for signs of trouble in your spreadsheets. Think of FileSize and Recalculation Time as the rev-counter of your car…if it’s getting further and further into the red, then pull over, and check under the hood.
The second – and I can’t underscore this enough – is the importance to organizations of educating all users on how to recognize symptoms of inefficiency. They don’t all have to know how to treat it (although that would be good), but just how to diagnose it. Because if it goes undiagnosed, avoidable inefficiency imposes significant, on-going, and very real opportunity cost. A real dollar amount.
Raising awareness of danger signs is possibly the biggest efficiency gain and risk-reducing opportunity that any training initiative can offer, at the least cost. It’s a game-changer.
Two morals, multiple remedies.
Over at the Daily Dose of Excel blog, I recently posted a mock business case centered around corporate investment in Excel training programme. There’s much more food for thought there, and even more in the comments, so go take a look, and please do leave a comment there with your own thoughts.
While this business case revolves around an internal corporate training programme, another great way of reducing this opportunity cost is through courses such as Chandoo.org’s own Excel School, VBA Classes, and other Chandoo courses.
Not to mention other fantastic courses that you’ll find advertised on the web if you look.
And yet another is though interactions in places like the Chandoo Forum, where you’ll find an army of ninjas with more collective experience than the Borg from Star Trek. The hive mind that is a forum knows no equal.
And of course, you’ll find a wealth of information on this very blog, in articles like I said your spreadsheet is really FAT, not real PHAT!
About the Author.
Jeff Weir – a local of Galactic North up there in Windy Wellington, New Zealand – is more volatile than INDIRECT and more random than RAND. In fact, his state of mind can be pretty much summed up by this:
=NOT(EVEN(PROPER(OR(RIGHT(TODAY())))))
That’s right, pure #VALUE!
Find out more at http:www.heavydutydecisions.co.nz
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!