Ok, Ok, Chandoo.org is clearly a Microsoft Excel centric Blog.
But a week ago Pradeep asked the question in a post, “How do I add up a Table of Numbers in Word?”
There are 3 easy answers, which will all be addressed in this post:
- Transfer the Data to/from Excel
- Embed a Table in Word from Excel
- Do the Maths in Word
Transfer Data To/From Excel
The easiest and sometimes quickest way to do maths on a table of numbers is to:
- Copy the Table from Word and paste the Table into an Excel Workbook
- Perform the Maths in Excel
- Copy and paste the results back
Here is a typical Table within Word
Select the Table in Word and press either Ctrl+C or use the Copy 
icon.
Open Excel or switch to Excel using Alt+Tab
Select a cell and press Paste Ctrl+V or use the Paste 
Icon
Excel shows the Table as above.
Next add formulas to perform the calculations you need
In this case in C9: =SUM(C4:C8)
Copy the formula in C9 across to D9
In E4: =D4/C4
Copy the formula in E4 down to E9
Format the new results as appropriate
Next select either the full table or a section, ie: The Numbers and Copy using either Ctrl+C or use the Copy icon.
Switch to Word using Alt+Tab
Select the same area in the Word Table as what you copied in Excel
and press Paste Ctrl+V or use the Paste Icon 
When to use this technique
This technique is useful for doing one of reports where the data is provided to you as is.
It is also good when you need to perform complex formulas.
However when you control the data source there is an easier way and this is discussed next.
Embed the Table in Word from Excel
In cases where you manage the data source, you can link the table in Word directly to the data source in Excel.
By doing this the Word Table is updated as soon as changes are made in the Excel Table.
In Excel find your source data:
Select the range you want to embed into the word Document
Copy this range using either Ctrl+C or use the Copy icon.
Open Word or Switch to Word using Alt+Tab
Locate and click in the area in the Word Document where you want to place the report
Goto the Home Tab and press Paste Ctrl+V or use the Paste Icon
Select the Paste and Keep Source Formatting option
Note 1: As you move across the 6 paste options word will show you what the Pasted range will look like using each format
Note 2: Notice in the example above the pasted range also includes the grey grid lines. If you don’t want these you need to disable them in Excel before you copy the range
Now that we have our Word Document with the new Range pasted in, you notice that there is a mistake in the data
Return to Excel by Using Alt+Tab
Change the Date to the 18 Aug 2018 and change the Revenue on Tuesday to 3000
Return to Excel by Using Alt+Tab
Notice that the Date, Tuesday Revenue and Unit Revenue have all changed to reflect the changes in the excel Document.
You can reformat the Table in Word and only the numbers and text will change in response to changes in the Excel Document
The Excel and Word Files must be open for the link to be updated dynamically.
If the Excel file is closed the Word file will not update.
When to use this technique
This is a great technique when you have a large data source with mutiple tables used in Word, Like a Monthly Report.
But there is an alternative…
Perform the Maths in Word
Microsoft Word has limited arithmetic abilities built in.
These abilities only apply to data stored in Tables, not to data stored in tabular format within normal text
Open a word file and enter a Table of Data like below
This is the same table we have seen before.
It requires a Total Line as well as Unit Revenue calculations
Click into the Sales Quantity Weekly Totals cell.
Now goto the Layout Tab and select the Formula icon.
In the Formula: dialog Word will have inserted a Formula =SUM(ABOVE)
This is what we want to do, so leave it
Select an appropriate Number format from the Number format drop down. These number formats are in the same style as Excel Custom Number Formats.
Click OK
Word puts the total 750 in this case in the Total cell
Change a Number above and watch as the Total changes
Repeat the previous step in the revenue Weekly Total cell
The Unit Revenue will be the Revenue for each day divided by the Sales Quantity that day.
That is, for Monday, we want to divide the Sales Revenue of $2,000 by the Sales Quantity 100 to return a Unit Revenue of 200
Luckily Word has the facility to treat Cells in a Table in a similar fashion to Excel !
We can use either R1C1 or A1 formula formats.
In R1C1 each column and row is simply numbered as shown below
In A1 each column is Labelled alphabetically as in the default view in Excel and row is numbered as shown below
And Word is actually more advanced than Excel as you can use either format at the same time without having to change the format in settings.
In our example we want to divide the Cell in Row 2 Column 3 (R2C3) by the value in Row 2 Column 2 (R2C2)
Click in the Cell under the Unit Revenue column header in Row 2
Goto the Layout Tab and select the Formula icon
By default Word will display a =SUM(LEFT) formula
Overwrite this with your own formula =R2C3/R2C2
Select an appropriate Number format and press OK
You can use the A1 formula style by simply using it
Click in the Cell under the Unit Revenue column header in Row 2
Goto the Layout Tab and select the Formula icon
By default Word will display a =SUM(LEFT) formula
Overwrite this with your own formula =C2/B2
Select an appropriate Number format and press OK
Repeat this for the other cells in the Unit Revenue column.
Voila !
You now have a Table in Word, the Total and Unit Rates are Formulas.
But wait there is a mistake, The Revenue on Tuesday should be $5,000
Select the cell and change the value to 5,000
Depending on which version of Word you have the Table will either Update Automatically or you can force it to recalculate
If you Change the Value and the Table updates itself, Enjoy it
If your Table hasn’t updated itself you have a few options
Select the cells by Left Click and Drag ie: From 5,000 Down to the base of the table and across to the Right
Now Right click the selection and select Update or press F9
You can also click on an individual cell within the Table and Right Click and Update
Or you can press Ctrl+A outside the Table and Right Click and Update or Press F9
What Other Functions are Available?
We saw in the example above that we can use basic operands of +, –, * and /
We used the function Sum()
But there are about a dozen other functions available to us to construct formula to process our data
To see and use these Goto the Layout Tab and select the Paste function dropdown on the Formula Dialog.
Scroll down to see other functions
You can build up a function as you do in Excel using parenthesis and these functions.
In the example above we used the special Above range to specify that we wanted to Sum the values Above the active cell.
You can also use the LEFT, RIGHT, ABOVE, BELOW positional arguments
If you have defined Bookmarks within the Word document you can also use these to return values
=ROUND(NPV,0)
Where NPV is a Bookmark to the value of the NPV elsewhere in your Document.
Further Help
Word has a good discussion on the techniques available in the online help
Microsoft Word – Formula in a cell help
Final Comments
How have you performed maths on data in Word?
Let us know in the comments below:
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!