Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Searching for Line Breaks.
Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 2, 2023)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Veronica wondered how to search for a line break (Alt+Enter) in a cell. In Word you can search for ^l to find line breaks, but there does not seem to be a similar way to search for line breaks in Excel.
The answer is to remember that you can enter any ASCII code into the "Find What" box by holding down the Alt key and using the numeric keypad. Since the ASCII code for the line break is 10, you can follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Find tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
If you want to find cells containing a line break through a macro, you can use the following:
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here:
Sub FindLineBreak()
Cells.Select
Selection.Find(What:=Chr(10), After:=ActiveCell, _
LookIn:=xlValues, LookAt:=xlPart, _
SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext, _
MatchCase:=False, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
End Sub
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3220) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Searching for Line Breaks.
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