Keyboard Shortcut to toggle b/w Find and Replace and Active Worksheet?

bwparker1

New Member
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
2
Hi: <o:p></o:p>
I open the Find and replace Dialogue Box using CTRL+F and then enter
the value I am looking for. Excel moves the cursor to the cell in
question with the found value. <o:p></o:p>
Is there anyway to then use the keyboard to move from the dialogue box
into the actual worksheet, without having to mouse click back into the
open file? It seems there has to be some type of way to use the
keyboard to move from the Find Dialogue box without using the mouse.
I hope I am being clear on what I am trying to do, it seems very
simple yet I cannot figure out what keyboard command to use to
basically select the Excel Window while leaving the Find Dialogue box
open. <o:p></o:p>I am basically trying to use only the keyboard to jump back and forth between the the Find box and then the found cell in the work sheet.
Thank you. - BWP <o:p></o:p>
 

Excel Facts

Will the fill handle fill 1, 2, 3?
Yes! Type 1 in a cell. Hold down Ctrl while you drag the fill handle.
Welcome to the Board!

You could press the escape key to get back to excel, but then the find and replace isn't up anymore, you would then have to press control+F for find or Control+H for replace.

I know that is not exactly what you are looking for, but you may find it in this list:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/KeyboardShortcuts.htm

Hope that helps.
 
Upvote 0
If you use Find All instead of just Find (in the same dialog box), Excel lists all the places where it finds what you are looking for. If you click on the cell reference(s) shown, it takes you to that cell in the worksheet, and leaves the Find dialog box open. Is that what you want?

If you select Find in workbook instead of in worksheet (under options in the Find dialog box) it will find all instances of what you are looking for in the entire workbook. Selecting the cell reference shown takes you to that cell in the workbook, but still leaves the dialog box open.

You can scroll up and down in the list of found items with the arrow keys without using the mouse.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0
If you use Find All instead of just Find (in the same dialog box), Excel lists all the places where it finds what you are looking for. If you click on the cell reference(s) shown, it takes you to that cell in the worksheet, and leaves the Find dialog box open. Is that what you want?

No, in that the Excel Worksheet is still inactive. yes, the correct cell is selected, but the window is still grayed out. I am trying to figure how to use the keyboard to get into the actual worksheet without using the mouse to "click" into the cell and thus selecting the window.
 
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If you haven't already found the answer, I may have found the answer you're looking for. Try ALT F6. It seems like you have to toggle three times instead of twice. On the first toggle, both the dialog box and the worksheet are grayed out. But you can still do whatever you want on the worksheet. The second toggle, the worksheet is selected. And on the third toggle, the dialog box is selected again. I hope that helps.

I am looking for a similar solution when using the dialog box for entering function arguments in a formula. There is a box you can click (called Collapse Dialog) that takes you back and forth between the dialog box and the worksheet. (This is silly anyways since you can click right in the worksheet and back without collapsing the dialog box). But I am trying to find a keyboard solution. ALT F6 doesn't work. I have tried every key combination I can think of. I've found a half-baked work around which is to use SHIFT F4. This is really the equivalent to find, and as long as value you're looking for can be found on the worksheet, it will take you to the worksheet and you can use the keyboard from there. Interestingly, even while you're using the keyboard to select data for your formula, the formula dialog box is still active and you can tab to the next field without toggling back to the dialog box. Then hit SHIFT F4 again for the next field. But this workaround doesn't always work. I sometimes have to clear out my "find" value. Does anyone know a better solution??
 
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i'm also trying to find an answer to the same problem. have a large worksheet, utilise ctrl+f to find something, but then have to take my fingers off the keyboard to utilise the mouse to click in the worksheet thus making it active but keeping the "find" open. to go back to the "find" dialogue box, I just click ctrl+f again.

sorry, alt F6 doesn't seem to work.
 
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as posted above, just hit Esc. It will get rid of the find/replace dialogue box. Then just hit CTRL+F again to reopen it.
 
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With the find box open, if you press Windows button+TAB to begin cycling through your open windows, but only press it once, it will return you to your current window (which will obviously be Excel) but it leaves you in the workbook instead of returning you to the find box. You can therefore switch between the two windows using CTRL+F to get into the find box and WINDOWS+TAB to get back to the workbook.

Far too late to be of any use to you I'm sure but as I found this thread whilst trying to answer the question myself I thought I'd add it anyway.
 
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Welcome to the forum, and thank you for taking the trouble to post it! :)
 
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