Excel 2007 : excel 2007 find and replace - not finding desired items

**waynej001** · 02-23-2012, 11:12 AM

I am trying to replace a text format in a column of data. I search on the "format from the cell" and replace that with the desired format. The result is that excel doesn't find anything. I decided to do a simple "find" on a known text item (no formatting involved). It still can't find this item. What am I missing here??

**DGagnon** · 02-23-2012, 01:34 PM

im not sure i understand what you are trying to accomplish, would you be able to provide an example?

**waynej001** · 02-23-2012, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by DGagnon

im not sure i understand what you are trying to accomplish, would you be able to provide an example?

In my (Excel 2007) spreadsheet, I have a column of text & numbers that are invisible (text font is white). (The column has other items in black text font as well.) I want to be able to view the items that are white text font. What I tried is find / replace: find the white text font ("choose format from cell...") and replace with text of another color, say black font. The result of this operation is that it does not find anything. This has worked in Excel 2003.

Then, as a test I tried a simple "find" to look for a piece of text that I know exists and again, it returns nothing (can't find it). Note: I cleared all the formatting from the search.

Thanks!

**DGagnon** · 02-23-2012, 02:01 PM

are you highlighting the column with the text you are searching for in it? it sounds like something is not functioning properly in excel, but this is hard to validate with out a test file.

**john55** · 02-23-2012, 02:05 PM

I tested to find n replace a white text and it worked.

**waynej001** · 02-23-2012, 02:57 PM

Originally Posted by DGagnon

are you highlighting the column with the text you are searching for in it? it sounds like something is not functioning properly in excel, but this is hard to validate with out a test file.

I attached a sample file to this. The text info I'm referring to is in column A. Also can't do a find on any other items either.

Thanks.

**DGagnon** · 02-23-2012, 04:54 PM

it looks like your text coulour is not the same white you are searching for, after reformating the colour as white i was able to make the change. also note when searching by formating i only selected the text colour, no other options in the search.