How to find and replace text within comments (notes) in Excel?
Excel's Find and Replace function is a powerful tool for quickly updating content within cells, but it does not directly apply to Notes—the new name for the traditional comments prior to Excel 2019. Many users wonder if it's possible to apply the same functionality to the text within Excel Notes. This guide will show you how to effectively find and replace text in Notes, expanding your ability to manage and refine all aspects of your spreadsheets.
Using VBA code to find and replace text within comments (notes)
A handy tool to find and replace text within comments (notes) quickly and easily
Using VBA code to find and replace text within comments (notes)
In Excel, you can use the following VBA code to find and replace text in all notes. For example, I will replace the text "2011" with the text "2012" in all notes in Excel.
1. Click Developer >Visual Basic and a new Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window will be displayed, click Insert > Module and then input the following VBA code in the Module:
VBA code: Find and replace text in all notes in Excel
Sub ReplaceNotes()
'Updated by Extendoffice 2024/07/25
Dim cell As Range
Dim wks As Worksheet
Dim sFind As String
Dim sReplace As String
Dim sNote As String
' Define the text to find and replace
sFind = "2011"
sReplace = "2012"
' Loop through each worksheet in the active workbook
For Each wks In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
For Each cell In wks.Cells
If cell.NoteText <> "" Then
sNote = cell.NoteText
If InStr(sNote, sFind) > 0 Then
sNote = Replace(sNote, sFind, sReplace)
cell.NoteText Text:=sNote, Start:=1, Length:=Len(cell.NoteText)
End If
End If
Next cell
Next wks
End Sub
2. Then click the 
button to run the code, and all "2011" in all notes will be replaced with "2012" in the whole workbook.
A handy tool to find and replace text within comments (notes) quickly and easily
We can quickly find and replace text in all notes with Kutools for Excel’s Find/Replace Note Text.
If you have installed Kutools for Excel, you can easily find and replace the text in all notes in Excel.
1. Click Kutools > More > Find/Replace Note Text.
2. In the Find/Replace Note Text dialog box:
- (1.) Select the scope that you want to apply this utility, you can select Active sheet or All sheets;
- (2.) Enter the text (2011) that you want to replace into the Find text in notes box, and input the specific text (2012) that you want to use in the Replace with box.
3. And then click Replace button. All of 2011 will be replaced with 2012 within the comments in the active worksheet. See screenshots:
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Related articles:
- Change all comment formats in cells
- Change all comments' author name
- List all comments to a new worksheet or workbook
- Show or hide all comments and comment indicators in Excel
- Convert cell contents to comments in Excel
- Convert comments to cell contents in Excel
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