Find Replace blanks not working on Mac or Microsoft Surface but works fine on PC

Question

Hello.

Edit-Find Replace is working fine on Excel on PC but not on Mac or Surface when trying to replace blanks.

On Pc, i can just highlight a range of cells (some that have data, some that are blank), and when I select Editing, Find & Select, Replace and then leave the box next to Find What as blank and then put something (e.g. "zzz") in the Replace with box, any cell that already has data is kept the same and any cell with blanks are replaced with zzz. This is as expected.

On Mac and Surface, though when I try the same steps on the same file and same range on Mac, I get the message that "we couldn't find anything to replace".

Are there different steps needed or is there something I'm missing?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi MikeGoldenberg1,

I go through your post carefully and as per your description, I just tested form my side Excel version 16.46 (21021202) on Mac OS Big Sure and when to used Find & Replace option, it worked as expected.

I select range of cell with some empty cell and some cells have data in Excel for mac, click on Find & Replace option>replace>under Find what box I leave empty and under Replace with I type e.g.  “zzz” and I click on Replace all button it will replay all empty cell to zzz, here’s the result.

For you reference: Find and replace text or numbers in Excel for Mac

As are getting the issue replacing searched content with blank, I would like to collect following information to troubleshoot the issue: 

1.Could you please confirm the build and version of your Excel apps? To get this information, open Excel, go to the Excel menu and choose About Excel.

2.For the test purpose, create a new workbook, enter some data and check if you can replace content in a blank cell.

3.Please provide related screenshot showing the exact issue.

I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Best Regards

Waqas Muhammad

Answer 2

Hello, and thank you for the quick response.

First re: excel version it's MS Excel for Microsoft 365 MSO (16.0.13801.20240) 64-bit.

Next: can you try same thing but for the range selected chose a1:a20. I get same successful result you do if the blanks are anywhere in the middle of the selected range. But if blanks are in the range but below the last row with data, that's where I cam getting the error message.

Here's a screenshot of what I'm getting. Even with this range and same steps and same version of excel, the replace works fine on PC. But on surface and on macbook pro, the error message below occurs.

Thanks for your help! Hope you can help me solve this riddle...

Answer 3

Perhaps a bug but I'm finding that Replace All does as you describe [Mac Excel 16.47]. That doesn't explain the behavior on a Surface which use the same Windows software as the PC, though.

However, the operation does work if you click Replace for each instance rather than trying to replace all at once.

Answer 4

Bob-

When you say "does as you describe", do you mean you are getting the same error I get when doing the replace all on the range?

thanks!

Answer 5

Yes, Replace All generates the errotr message: Replace [each instance] does not generate the error message.