How to fix Ctrl + F not working

In Excel, “Ctrl + F” is a keyboard shortcut that opens up the “Find and Replace” dialog box. This feature allows you to search for specific text or values within your spreadsheet, and then replace them with something else if desired. If you want to search for data within a specific range of cells, you can select that range before opening the “Find and Replace” dialog box. Excel will search only within that range for the data you’re searching for.

In some cases, Ctrl + F does not work properly and it does not find the desired text and shows that there’s no such text we’re looking for. The dataset below shows information on sales data and we need to find a specific cell that contains the date on which a product was sold but the shortcut key isn’t working and we need to fix it to find our required cell.

Method 1 – Choosing the right options in Find and Replace dialog box

The find and replace tool sometimes don’t work because we have selected the wrong options in the settings of the Find and Replace dialog box. In this case, even if the values are present in our dataset Find and Replace tool won’t be able to search these values as shown below.

So, now follow the steps mentioned below to solve this issue.

Step 1 – Opening the find and replace dialogue box

• For opening the dialogue box of the find and replace tool, press and hold the Ctrl button.
• Then, press the F key while pressing the Ctrl button.
• Now, you’ll see that a find and replace tool dialogue box is opened on your screen.

Step 2 – Selecting an appropriate option in the Look in field

• After the dialogue box has opened, go to the last option named Look in. 
• Then, click on the arrow at the left end of the look in option box.
• After you’ve pressed it, a drop-down menu will open.
• Select the second option named values.
• Now, the find and replace tool should work.

Method 2 – Fixation by unselecting Multiple cells

Sometimes, we’ve selected multiple cells and then we try to use the Find and Replace tool but, in this case, it won’t work. It happens because we’ve selected multiple cells and this tool will only search in those cells and we’ll get the error as shown below.

To solve this problem, see the steps below:

Step 1 – Unselecting multiple cells

• First of all, figure out if more than one cell is currently selected.
• If yes, then, move your mouse to any cell.
• Select the cell by pressing left-click button on your keyboard.
• This will unselect all cells, except the single cell which you clicked on. That would be selected only now, as shown below.

Step 2 – Using Ctrl + F to find out if the problem is solved

• For opening the Find and Replace tool, press Ctrl + F.
• Now, a dialogue box will appear on your screen.
• After that, enter what you want to find in the Find option.
• Then, press the Enter key on your keyboard.
• Now, the problem of not being able to find the cell should be fixed.

Method 3 – Solving the problem by unchecking the “match the entire cell content” option

Checking the “Match entire cell contents” option in the Find and Replace tool in Excel can cause problems. If you are searching for a specific text string that is part of a larger text string in the cell, then you will not want to search for the entire contents of the cell e.g. if we want to find and replace “B” from Widget B in cell C3 but if we type only letter B in find what option, Excel won’t be able to find the cell. 

To fix this problem, implement the following steps:

Step 1 – Open the find and replace dialogue box

• For opening the dialogue box of find and replace tool, press and hold Ctrl button.
• Then, press F button while pressing the Ctrl button already.
• Now, you’ll see that a find and replace tool dialogue box is opened on your screen.

Step 2 – Uncheck the “match the entire cell content” option

• After you’ve opened the Find and Replace tool, type the part of the string you want to find in a cell e.g., it is letter B in this case.
• Then unmark the option named “match the entire cell content”.
• Then, press Enter and now the problem will be fixed and Excel will be able to find the small part of the string instead of matching the whole text of the string and then finding it.