How to Replace Words in Excel (Formulas + Find and Replace)

In this post, I’ll show you EXACTLY how to find and replace a word in Excel.

Whether you’re working on a spreadsheet full of product names,

fixing typos,

or updating multiple values, Excel gives you easy tools and formulas to get the job done—fast.

In this guide, you’ll learn:

• How to Find and Replace words quickly
• How to replace using formulas, including SUBSTITUTE() and REPLACE()
• How to replace multiple characters or strings by position
• Pro tips, shortcuts, and examples that work in Google Sheets, too!

1. The Easiest Way to Replace Words in Excel (Find and Replace)

Excel’s built-in tool works like magic if you need to find and replace text or numbers.

Let’s consider a real-world scenario where you have a list of products with Stock Status. Some of them have pending status and you want to find and replace them with Available.

Here is how you can do it.

Steps:

• Select the range (or press shortcut keys Ctrl + A to select the entire sheet).

• Use the shortcut Ctrl + H (or Cmd + Shift + H on Mac).

• In Find what, type the word you want to replace. Pending in our case.
• In Replace with, type the new word. Available in our case.
• Click Replace All to update all at once.

It will find the Pending word in the sheet and replace it with Available.

Here is the result.

Note: You can use the same method in Google Sheets. Just press Ctrl + H to open Find and Replace.

Replace Text with Wildcards (Flexible Searching)

When you’re working with large data sets in Excel, you often need to clean up text quickly—whether it’s removing extra labels, outdated notes, or unnecessary characters.

Instead of manually editing each cell, You can use Excel’s Find & Replace feature with wildcards to replace or remove text patterns in just a few clicks.

Wildcards like * and ? make it easy to search for flexible patterns.

Let us see an example.

An Example of Using * wildcard:

Consider a scenario where you are managing a product list, and many items have extra notes in parentheses, like:

• Phone X (old)
• Laptop Z (2022 Edition)
• Sneakers Pro (Limited)

Now you want to remove everything in parentheses, including the parentheses themselves, but the content inside varies.

In this case, You can use the Find & Replace with * Wildcards method.

Here, you can find by (*) and leave Replace with blank and click the Replace All button.

Before

After

It will remove parentheses and everything in it.

An example of using ? wildcard:

The ? wildcard represents any single character. You can use it when you want to find or replace text that follows a specific pattern, but one character might vary.

You have a list of product codes and you want to find and replace any code that ends with a single character, no matter what that character is.

Example Data (Before):

• PRODX1
• PRODX2
• PRODXA
• PRODXB
• PRODXY

Find by PRODX? wildcard and replace with a PRODX will make them

• PRODX
• PRODX
• PRODX
• PRODX
• PRODX

This will remove the last character.

Same way, you can turn Shirt_01 into Shirt-0X using ? wildcard.

Fix Typos with Find & Replace

Fixing typos manually is a time-consuming process. You can quickly fix common typos in Excel using Find & Replace or the SUBSTITUTE formula.

Scenario:

You have a product list, but some entries misspell the word “Mobile” as “Moible“.

Steps to fix:

• Select the range or entire sheet (Ctrl + A).
• Press Ctrl + H to open Find & Replace.
• In Find what, type: Moible
• In Replace with, type: Mobile
• Click Replace All.

Example Before/After:

2. How to Replace Words Using Formula (SUBSTITUTE Function)

The SUBSTITUTE formula allows you to replace text within a cell, even when you have multiple values to change.

Syntax:

=SUBSTITUTE(text, old_text, new_text, [instance_num])

Here:

• text: The cell or string you’re working on
• old_text: The word or characters you want to replace
• new_text: What you want instead
• instance_num (optional): Choose which occurrence to replace (useful when you only want one change)

Examples:

Formula to substitute single characters

=SUBSTITUTE(A2, "Ltd", "Limited")

Type this formula in B2 cell

It will replace the word “Ltd” with “Limited” in cell B2.

Formula to Substitute Multiple Characters

You can nest SUBSTITUTE formulas to replace multiple values at once:

Suppose, we have Product SKU: ELEC-1003_(2023)

and looking to remove

• Dashes –
• Underscores _
• Parentheses ( and )

from it to look cleaner like: ELEC10032023.

We can use the formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,"-",""),"_",""),"(",""),")","")," ","")

This nested SUBSTITUTE formula will remove unwanted characters from it and make it clean.

Also, you can use SUBSTITUTE Formula like: =SUBSTITUTE(A2, “Moible”, “Mobile”) to fix typos in cells.

This formula will work very well to clean data in Excel or Google Sheets.

3. Replace Text by Position with REPLACE() Formula

Are you looking to swap text based on its character position?

The REPLACE formula works well when you need to update a string by position, not by word.

Syntax:

=REPLACE(old_text, start_num, num_chars, new_text)

• old_text: The original string
• start_num: Where do you want to start replacing
• num_chars: How many characters to replace
• new_text: What you want to insert instead

Example:

Let’s consider the product code: Product123 in A2 cell. Here, we want to replace the last three characters from 123 to 456.

You can use formulas like:

=REPLACE(A2, 8, 3, "456")

Type the above formula in the B2 cell. It will replace characters 8 to 10 and returns “Product456”.

This Excel function works great when you need to fix codes, IDs, or strings by position.

4. Replace Case-Sensitive Words (Exact Match)

Excel’s Find and Replace function isn’t case-sensitive.

But if you need case-sensitive replacements, you can use the formula.

Example Formula:

=IF(EXACT(A2, "Pending"), "Completed", A2)

In this image, you can see that the text was not replaced because it is case-sensitive.

However, it replaces the text when the case matches, as shown in the image below.

This formula will make sure that you only replace exact matches, like “Pending”, not “pending”.

5. Replace Words Across Multiple Sheets (Time Saver!)

Earlier, we learned how to replace words in a single sheet. Is it possible to do it on multiple sheets?

Yes, Of course!

Suppose you have a workbook with four sheets with a mix of task statuses Pending and Complete.

You want to update all sheets to replace all Pending tasks as Complete in one go.

Steps:

• Hold Ctrl and select all sheet tabs.
• Press Ctrl + H.
• Run Find and Replace (Find what: Pending and Replace with: Complete), and Excel updates all grouped sheets.

Remember to ungroup sheets after you finish (Right-click > Ungroup Sheets).

6. Replace Words and Formatting at the Same Time

Replace not just words, but also cell formatting (like font color or background).

Steps:

Press Ctrl + H.

Click Options.

Use Format… next to Find/Replace boxes. Replace Format window will open.

Specify fonts (font tab) = Italic, colors (Fill tab) = Green, borders = Outline, etc.

Click OK and Replace All.

7. Replace Blank Cells with a Value (Super Handy!)

If your sheet has blank cells, you can fill them with N/A or 0 easily.

Follow these steps to replace them.

• Select range of data.
• Press Ctrl + H.
• Leave Find what blank.
• Type N/A (or any value) in Replace with.
• Click Replace All.

It will replace all blank cells with N/A.

8. Replace Words in Google Sheets (Works the Same!)

You can use Find and Replace, SUBSTITUTE(), and REPLACE() formulas in Google Sheets, too.

Shortcuts:

• Find and Replace: Ctrl + H
• SUBSTITUTE formula:

=SUBSTITUTE(A2, "old", "new")

• REPLACE formula:

=REPLACE(A2, 1, 3, "XYZ")

Note: Google Sheets does not support case-sensitive Find and Replace—but formulas still work!

Common Problems (And How to Fix Them)

Real-World Examples for Replacing Words in Excel

FAQs About Replacing Words in Excel and Google Sheets

Download practice workbook For Practical Excercise

Want a FREE Excel Template showing all these examples?

Download Replace Words in Excel Practice Workbook (.xlsx file)

And check these guides next:

• How to Combine Two Columns in Excel
• How to Split Text into Columns in Excel

Got Questions or Need Help?

If you have any questions about replacing words in Excel, whether using formulas or the Find and Replace feature, feel free to ask in the comments below!
I’ll be happy to help you out.

Or if you have a tricky Excel problem you’d like me to cover next, let me know! 😊