Inconsistent Behavior of Find and Replace Dialog Box

I think you'll find this depends on whether the Find-Replace box was already open, having been used previously and then hidden under another window. If you are opening a completely new Find-Replace box, it comes up with the whole word you used last time highlighted. If the box is already open, it reappears on the surface with the insertion point. There is some logic to this.

In Excel, my experience is that whenever the Replace tab is selected either after pressing Ctrl-F or Selected by pressing Ctrl-H, the "Replace With" box has focus. The contents of the box are highlighted. It has been this way since perhaps Excel version 2003. Personally I would like the "Find what" box to have focus. If there is a secret to getting the find What box selected I would love to know it.

In VBA, Word, Access, Publisher and PowerPoint the "Find What" box is the one that has focus no matter what box had focus when the dialog was closed although there are minor differences between them. Excel is the odd one out. (OneNote doesn't have a Replace dialog.)

I find it easier to press Ctrl+a to highlight all and overwrite.

@Alan
The behaviour you describe is indeed a very annoying. it seems to appear in all Office applications. It irritates me every time because it is not logic and prone to errors.

Willy

I can't replicate the issue reported by Arlene in a search and find in a spreadsheet either. ( I have tried Excel 2003 , 2007 and 2010 on a few independent versions on different computer instillations)

However I have always observed another slightly strange, or at least inconvenient, behaviour in all my attempts at a search and find in the
Excel VAB Editor Window:
This inconvenient behaviour I see in all those versions of Excel that I have.
I also observe this inconvenient behaviour in Word 2007, both in a search and find
in a document
and also
on a search and find in the Word VBA Editor Window

This inconvenient behaviour is that when hitting the replace with, then the find what is still highlighted and selected. So if I am not careful and start writing immediately after the replace box comes up, then I start overwriting what I am searching for –
So I always must remember to click in the replace box after selecting replace. In all spreadsheet search and replace attempts, the replace box is selected automatically when I hit the replace button. ( I except someone forgot to add that last bit of selection moving software or that last bit of the software does not always work )

Alan Elston

I can't replicate the issue reported by Arlene either, but there is a somewhat similar issue when repeatedly using Ctrl+H (find and replace), which I believe is consistent. The first time you use it, the insertion point is in the (empty) "Find what" box, but on second and every subsequent occasion it's in the "Replace with" box, with the previous replacement text highlighted.

Presumably there's some reason behind this, but it frequently trips me up. For example, to replace all J10 with K10 I 'd type Ctrl+H J10 Tab K10 Alt+A Enter Esc , which works fine the first time. If at some later point I want to replace all L10 with M10, I would like to type in the same pattern Ctrl+H L10 Tab M10 Alt+A Enter Esc, except that fails because L10 goes into the "Replace with" rather than "Find what", and the Tab highlights the Options button rather than putting the insertion point in "Replace with".