Replacing in Worksheets and Comments At the Same Time

Dorothy's students are customizing a checkbook simulation workbook, replacing the default name with their own. For example, she wants them to search for "Jason Anderson" and replace the name with "Sue Smith." There are 22 occurrences of "Jason Anderson" in text boxes throughout eight worksheet tabs, and several more on the worksheets themselves. Dorothy wonders how she can Find and Replace all worksheet occurrences and all comment occurrences at once.

There is no way to do this without using a macro. The macro would need to look through each cell in the workbook, each comment, and each text box to see if changes needed to be made. The following is an example of how this can be done:

Sub ReplaceNames()
    Dim sDefaultName As String
    Dim sNewName As String
    Dim sht As Worksheet
    Dim cmt As Comment
    Dim wks As Worksheet
    Dim sCmt As String
    Dim shp As Shape

    sDefaultName = "Jason Anderson"
    sNewName = InputBox("Enter your first and last name.", _
      "Name Replacement")

    ' Replace cell text
    For Each sht In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
        sht.Cells.Replace what:=sDefaultName, _
          Replacement:=sNewName, LookAt:=xlPart, _
          SearchOrder:=xlByRows, MatchCase:=False, _
          SearchFormat:=False, ReplaceFormat:=False
    Next sht

    ' Replace comment text
    For Each wks In ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets
        For Each cmt In wks.Comments
            sCmt = cmt.Text
            If InStr(sCmt, sDefaultName) <> 0 Then
                sCmt = Application.WorksheetFunction. _
                  Substitute(sCmt, sDefaultName, sNewName)
                cmt.Text Text:=sCmt
            End If
        Next cmt
    Next wks
    Set wks = Nothing
    Set cmt = Nothing

    ' Replace text box text
    On Error Resume Next
    For Each wks In ActiveSheet.Parent.Worksheets
        For Each shp In wks.Shapes
            With shp.TextFrame.Characters
                .Text = Application.WorksheetFunction.Substitute( _
                  .Text, sDefaultName, sNewName)
            End With
        Next shp
    Next wks
End Sub

The macro prompts the user to enter a new name and then searches cells, comments, and text boxes to see if there are any occurrences of the default name ("Jason Anderson"). If so, then the appropriate replacement is made.

If you don't want to use macros to do the searching, perhaps a restructuring of the workbook would be helpful. For instance, you could create a "data input worksheet" in which common information—such as the person's name—is entered. In the other worksheets, the name from the data input worksheet is referenced using formulas. Thus, one change in the data input worksheet, and the name is changed in all the other worksheets.

Using this approach can work with comments, as well. You can select the comment or shape and, in the Formula bar, enter a reference formula such as this:

=MyName

This assumes that the user's name, on the data input worksheet, has been associated with the MyName named range. If there needs to be additional information in the comment or shape, then you could construct that text in a cell on the data input worksheet and then assign the contents of that cell to the comment or shape, just as noted for the MyName named range.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2614) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016.