Moosa, one of our readers emailed this interesting question:
I have huge list of customers (around 1500).
Table includes following information
Customer # , Customer Name, Sales 2002, sales 2003, … sales 2012My requirements are
1. list of customer who did not have sales during all these years
2. List of customer who have not business from 2002
3. List of customer who have not business from 2003
…
10.List of customer who have not business from 2012
So how do we identify these customers?
Of course, we can write a very long and complex formula to get the list. I think we are better off using that energy to reach out to these customers and improve the sales. So lets figure out an easy solution.
Enter Pivot Tables
Assuming our data looks like this:
1. Select any cell and insert a pivot table
2. Set up pivot table like this:
3. Add Value filter show only customers with sales
Click on row label > value filter and set up criteria like this:
[More: using value filters with pivot tables]
4. Our report for non performing customers in 2002 is ready!
Hmm.. this good, but tedious
You are right. Although this approach gives answer for a particular year, when we want results for another year, we need to repeat all steps again. Not cool man, not cool.
So what next?
Part of the problem is due to how our data is structured. If we had 3 column structure like below,
we could set up a report filter on year and see which customers did not have any sales for any given year.
Alas, lets assume Moosa is stuck with this data.
Enter a helper column
We could improve our original solution so that user can select any year (or all) and see which customers did not fetch any sales by using a simple helper column.
- Just go to the original data set and add an extra column at the end.
- Call this selected year
- Now, go to an empty cell somewhere else in the worksheet and name it asselYear
- This is where we will keep the year for which we want the results (can be 2002, 2003…2012 or all)
- Lets assume our data is in range C4:M4 (C4 has 2002, D4 has 2003 … M4 has 2012)
- Now, we want to fetch only the selYear’s data in to this helper column. So if 2002 is selected, we want data in C4, for 2003 data in D4… and for all we want sum of all numbers in C4:M4.
- Looks like we can use some INDEX magic here.
- In the helper column write
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),INDEX(C4:M4,selYear-2001)) - Go ahead and examine that formula. I am not going to explain 😛
Now, our helper column fetches any one years data or sum of all years data, based on what users want. Awesome!
Lets go back to the pivot
Armed with our helper column, lets re-create the pivot table. But this time, instead of dropping any one year, we will drop selected year column in to “Values” area. This way, our pivot report shows customer names for selected year.
Lets add a combo-box form control so that we can select the year interactively.
But there is one problem!
Our pivot report does not refresh whenever we select another year.
Of course, we can easily fix this with a one line macro & some duct tape.
Right click on the combo box and choose “Assign macro”
Name the macro as refresh Pivot and write below code [more on the macro here]
Sub refreshPivot()
ActiveWorkbook.RefreshAll
End Sub
And we are done! We can interactively see which customers did not fetch us any sales for any given year. See this demo:
Download Example workbook
Click here to download example workbook & see this in action. Explore the macro & pivot table settings to understand how this works.
Using Pivot tables vs. Formulas for cases like this
I think this is a perfect example when Pivot table based solution is simpler compared to formula based one. Not only is it simple to set up, but it is very usable & modifiable. Often we complicate a problem by trying to figure out the perfect formula for it. I think an intelligent Excel user needs to mix various options – pivot tables, vba, formulas, tables etc. to get the solution in few simple steps.
This way, we can spend rest of our time finding out why Foger Rederer never bought anything from us after 2005.
What do you think? Do you use pivot tables often? How would you have solved Moosa’s problem? Please share using comments.
Learn Pivot Tables & Become a data rock-star
If you are new to pivot tables or have not used them to their full potential, now is the time to dip your toes. Check out below resources:
- Introduction to Excel Pivot Tables
- My top 5 tips for Pivot Tables
- How to group data in pivot tables
- Using slicers to filter pivot tables – new feature in Excel 2010
- Using report filters
- Visit our extensive pivot table section
Consider joining in our Excel School program: If you want to learn how to combine formulas, pivots, conditional formatting, charts & various other features of Excel to do awesome stuff, then please consider joining my Excel School program. It is a completely online course designed to make you awesome in Excel and Dashboards. To know more and join us, please click here.
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!