Evan has a worksheet that contains a number of chemical compound notations, such as H2O. When he firsts enters the compound, he can format the 2 as a subscript, as it should be. However, Evan needs to search for instances where the 2 is not subscripted and replace it with the correctly subscripted notation. He wonders if there is an easy way to do this.
There is no way to do this using the Find and Replace features of Excel. The reason? As one ExcelTips subscriber put it, "Excel is spectacularly bad at handling rich text in cells." Evidence of this is the very fact that you cannot search for mixed formatting within a cell or replace with mixed formatting.
Note that I said "mixed formatting," which is what Evan wants—the "H" and "O" use different formatting than the "2". If Evan hand wanted to change the entire cell contents to regular text or to subscribe, then you could have used the regular Find and Replace tool. It won't work for mixed formatting, though.
This means that the best approach is to use a macro to do the finding and replacing. There are several ways you can approach this; the following is just one.
Sub SubscriptNumbers()
Dim c As Range
Dim sWord As String
Dim sChar As String
Dim x As Long
For Each c In Selection
sWord = c.Value
For x = 1 To Len(sWord)
sChar = Mid(sWord, x, 1)
If sChar >= "0" And sChar <= "9" Then
c.Characters(Start:=x, Length:=1).Font _
.Subscript = True
End If
Next x
Next c
Set c = Nothing
End Sub
To use the macro, select the cells you want to modify and then run it. It steps through each cell in the selection and then examines the cell contents. If there are any digits in the contents, then those digits are formatted as subscript.
Note:
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (13362) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, and 2013.
Professional Development Guidance! Four world-class developers offer start-to-finish guidance for building powerful, robust, and secure applications with Excel. The authors show how to consistently make the right design decisions and make the most of Excel's powerful features. Check out Professional Excel Development today!
Tired of the Find and Replace dialog box blocking the view of your worksheet when you are searching for information? Do ...
Discover MoreDo you often want to search through a worksheet by column rather than by row? Excel defaults to searching by row, of ...
Discover MoreFinding and replacing information in a worksheet is easy. Finding and replacing in other objects (such as text boxes or ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2017-01-03 12:29:57
Sara
OK... I use the subscript option... But when I close the document and re-open it tho computer applies a pre-determined format from nowhere.
2015-01-29 12:47:16
Michael (Micky) Avidan
@Willy,
As you probably know Macros do not scare me.
The problem arises with the majority of Excel users who have no previous VBA experience.
Thanks for the Chemical explanation.
Michael (Micky) Avidan
“Microsoft® Answers" - Wiki author & Forums Moderator
“Microsoft®” MVP – Excel (2009-2015)
ISRAEL
2015-01-28 08:07:23
Willy Vanhaelen
@Micky
OK "Segoe UI Symbol" has it but it's still not easy to use. I would prefer to simply type the formula with normal numbers and run the macro.
BTW: H2SO4 is sulfuric acid. The stinky gas is hydrogen sulfide: H2S :-)
2015-01-27 13:30:58
Michael (Micky) Avidan
@Willy,
The only fact I recall, from Chemical lessons is that H2SO4 was a stinky(!) mixture.
"Segoe UI Symbol" font has ALL 10(!) subscript digits and most used (if not all) subscript characters.
Michael (Micky) Avidan
“Microsoft® Answers" - Wiki author & Forums Moderator
“Microsoft®” MVP – Excel (2009-2015)
ISRAEL
2015-01-27 07:32:25
Willy Vanhaelen
@Micky
Let's not focus on that subscript 2. That's just an example (H2O) used in this tip. Chemical formulas use any subscript number such as H2SO4.
As far as I know there is no font that has the alphabet and all the subscript numbers. So we are stick with mixed formatting in Excel. You can do it manually which is rather tedious or with a macro. Your suggestion of a QAT button assigned to the macro is interesting if you use it a lot.
2015-01-26 09:02:25
Michael (Micky) Avidan
@Willy,
In such cases I mainly use the "Segoe UI Symbol" font.
To my opinion it is the richest font character.
This is, ofcourse for the Search&Replace natter.
If one uses a lot of "2 Subscrip" I would suggest to add a dedicated macro button to the QAT bar.
Michael (Micky) Avidan
“Microsoft® Answers" - Wiki author & Forums Moderator
“Microsoft®” MVP – Excel (2009-2015)
ISRAEL
2015-01-26 05:53:45
Willy Vanhaelen
@Rob
I don't see any subscript numbers in standard fonts of Character Map. Only 1, 2 and 3 superscript.
2015-01-26 04:15:48
Rob
The easiest way is to not use a “2” and format as a subscript but to use the Windows program "Character Map" to find the correct character for a “subscript 2”. This may be specific to the character set being used (other subscript numbers exist, but some character sets may not have subscripts available).
This can be inserted into the string of the compound you need.
Once the correct character string for the compound is created, use This as the replace string in a standard Find & Replace.
2015-01-24 06:42:36
Willy Vanhaelen
Here is a shorter version of the macro:
Sub SubscriptNumbers()
Dim c As Range, x As Long
For Each c In Selection
For x = 1 To Len(c)
If IsNumeric(Mid(c, x, 1)) Then c.Characters(x, 1).Font.Subscript = True
Next x
Next c
End Sub
Got a version of Excel that uses the ribbon interface (Excel 2007 or later)? This site is for you! If you use an earlier version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the menu interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2018 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Comments