How to Replace Text in Selected Cells in Excel: 4 Simple Methods

Method 1 – Replace the Text in Selected Cells Using Find and Replace

Steps:

Select the range of cells we want to perform find and replace it.
Go to Editing > Find or Replace.

A dialog box will pop up like the image below.

Type Jonny in the Find what box and click Find All.

3 results are found.

Type Johnson in the Replace with box and click Replace All. Select the range again to perform Replace with. Otherwise, it will replace throughout the sheet.

Click OK in the confirmation box.

All 3 findings will be replaced, as you can see in the image below. Since the last text Jonny was not in the selected cells, it remained intact.

Method 2 – Use a Keyboard Shortcut to Replace Text from Selected Cells

Steps:

Select the cells we want to Find and Replace within.

Press CTRL+H and a Find and Replace dialog box will appear.

Continue as in Method 1. In the box, we will type Jonny in Find what and Johnson in Replace with box and click Replace All.

Our dataset will look like the following image.

Jonny in cell B14 was not in our selected cell range, so it is not replaced.

Method 3 – Replace the Text by a Wildcard Character

The wildcard is a unique character that helps us to match texts in Excel. Excel has three characters as wildcards to use in formulas: Asterisk (*), Question mark (?), and Tilde(~).

See the use of Asterisk (*) to find and replace text in selected cells.

Steps:

Select the cell range you want to check for replacing the text.

Press CTRL + H to open the Find and Replace dialog box.
In the Find what box, type *Jon.

If we use Asterisk (*) at the start and type a specific text, it will find all the text that ends with that text.
If we want to find the text by the first few characters, use the following.