Using The Find In Xls Features Of Microsoft Excel

Remember those days back then when you worked through hundreds of ledger sheets and journals as a public accountant and you did not have the convenience brought about by today’s computers? Surely, you can say that you were able to survive that struggling period in history. But when you compare today’s accounting workload with that of the yesteryears, you just might find yourself awed by what you have survived. Yes, today’s accounting workload has definitely become much easier, thanks to the advent of computer technology and programs – Microsoft Excel and its many XLS files and features, to be more specific. Back in the day, you would literally have to turn each and every page just to find a particular ledger item. These days, all you have to do is know how to find in XLS files the information that you are looking for, and this will be handed to you on a silver platter.

So, just how do you go about this then? To know how to do this, you must understand a few things about the Excel program first. Microsoft Excel has certainly become quite the popularly used spreadsheet tool, and the more preferred by accountants as well. The application comes with a lot of neat features – so neat that they literally uplift your accounting woes in an instant. Microsoft Excel comes with millions of cells and a myriad of formulas and operations that you can use when you are going through the books of your clients. Of course, this means that you have all those cells to fit all your data and figures in. You can just imagine how hard it would be to look for a particular figure or data amongst these millions of cells – it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack! But do not fret just yet because there are actually several ways for you to search through your XLS files.

Microsoft Excel does come with search functions that are built right into the application. So many people neglect to make use of these functions, thinking they are not really that important. But you would certainly be surprised as to how easy it is to use the Find and Replace function of the program. Simply access the function by pressing and holding down Control (CTRL) then the letter F, and a dialogue box pops out. Input the numbers you want to find, and the application will scour all of its existing sheets that contain those exact numbers or strings of characters.

Another great thing about Excel is that you do not have to jump from one sheet to another just to look for that particular figure or string of characters. For instance, your file has 20 sheets all full of figures and such. You do not have to open each sheet just to look for that particular figure. Just use the built-in search function and the program will search all sheets for you.

The software developers have certainly gone quite a long way to come up with convenient methods to find in XLS all sorts of figures and characters you would ever need. Do take the time to browse through the features of the program so that you can maximize your usage of it when doing some accounting work of your own.

By: Sam Miller

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