Is it possible to have a seperate "Find and Replace" window for each open Excel workbook?

Question

Say I'm working with two workbooks open.

I'll often be copying text/numbers from cells and pasting it into another workbook, using the find and replace function to find these respective text/numbers.

What Excel does, is it links the Find/Replace window for the two seperate workbooks that are open. As a result, this causes a lot of confusion because Excel will be searching the original workbook instead of the workbook I want to search in. I then have to take the time to click the workbook I want to search in before using the Find/Replace window.

Is there an option to make it so each workbook has its own find/replace window?

Answer 1

You can launch another copy of Excel by holding ALT while clicking the Excel icon from the desktop or start menu. Keep holding ALT until you get a pop-up asking if you want to create a new instance (click Yes). In this case you should have a different find/replace box for each window.

Unfortunately though you will loose some smart copy-and-paste functionality and perhaps a few other features, the two workbooks will no longer be aware of each other and data sharing will happen purely through the windows clipboard.

Answer 2

No. In current versions of Excel the Find and Replace popup works on the worksheet or workbook (depending on your "Within" options) that has focus. If you don't want to waste the time reaching for your mouse and clicking the other window you can alt-tab to it.

Why Excel does not have this option is a question for Microsoft. Other applications do have an option to search within other documents, but Excel does not.