# Excel 2010 Find & Replace

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2010-find-replace/564407>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 16, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2010-find-replace/564407 "2010-12-16T19:30:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [December 16, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2010-find-replace/564407/1 "2010-12-16T19:30:53Z")

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I’ve mentioned in the past that I am unable to convert the non-display character alt+010 (or any alt code) on my Mac, because it doesn’t do that sort of thing. I have some data that contains alt+010 characters, and I either have to change them on my work PC, or, if working from home, have a coworker do it for me. As it happens, my roomie has a shiny new PC laptop so I asked if I could edit the file on her computer.

The file opened in Excel 2010. (I have 2003 on my work PC and on my Mac.) I was able to do a Find on alt+010, but… the Replace tab was greyed out. So was the Find all button. I thought maybe Excel 2010 might have a ‘feature’ where you can’t replace something (or everything) until you’ve found it once. Nope. I tried alt+010 and a word I could see in the data. So that didn’t work.

How to you do a Find all and Replace in Excel 2010?