How to use Find and Replace to change text formatting in Microsoft Excel

One interesting feature of Microsoft Excel is the ability to find and replace. You can replace a word with a different word, or change the format of a word (color, bold, etc.).

This “Find and Replace” feature is very useful when you want to make bulk updates to misspelled words or replace terms with other terms.

In Microsoft Excel, the default text color that is displayed is black. The Text Color option lets you change the color of the text in your Excel data for some or all of the text.

If your Excel file is very large, changing the text color manually can be tedious and time-consuming. The same can also happen if you want to replace some text with bold, or italics or change the font type and size.

Access “Find and Replace” in Microsoft Excel

You can find the “Find and Replace” feature on the “Home > Editing > Find &; Select” tab. Click the “Find &; Select” button and then select “Find…  ” or “Replace… “.

In addition to these, you can also use keyboard shortcuts. Press (CTRL+F) to open the “Find” feature and (CTRL+H) to “Replace“.

Use “Find and Replace” to change the text color

As a case in point, you would color the number “107” in the data as shown below.

1. Press the keyboard keys (CTRL + H) to open the “Replace” dialog box.
2. Click the “Options” button to display the available options.
3. In the “Find what” section, type the number you are looking for (107).
4. Then, in the “Replace with” section leave it blank and click the “Format” button.
5. In the dialog box that appears, select the “Font” tab and click “Colors“, and select the color you want.

Use “Find and Replace” to change text formatting

If in the previous example, you only changed the color of the text, in the following example it will give the background color, change the font size and type, and add a bold style.

1. Repeat steps 1-4 in the previous example.
2. Then on the “Font” tab, select the font “Arial Narrow. Use the Font Style “Bold” and the font size “14”.
3. Next, click the “Fill” tab to add a background color. Choose yellow or any other color.
4. Next, click the “OK” button and click the “Replace All” button to replace all.