Find and Delete Rows

Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? I just ran across this Fabulous way to select rows (or columns, cells, etc) in a database that contain a Key Word, and Delete Them All at Once.

Let’s say that you have a database or table that contains records you wish to delete. Furthermore, let’s say the records you wish to get rid of all have the word Excelite included in one of the cells. It may be possible to sort the database and delete the records, but this may not be convenient (or even impossible if the Key Word does not lead the string in a cell).

Here is What You Do:

1.   Choose any cell on the worksheet, and press Ctrl+F on your keyboard
2.   Type the Key Word (“Excelite” in our example) in textbox and click the Find All button
3.  Now Select an item in the list, and press Ctrl+A to select the entire list
4.   Go to the Home tab, click the down-arrow on Delete (in the Cells group on the ribbon), and then click Delete Sheet Rows
5.   Voile! Your unwanted records are history!

You will note when you click the down-arrow on Delete that you are also presented with options to:

• Delete Cells
• Delete Sheet Columns and
• Delete Sheet

These can also be useful, but you will probably find the Delete Sheet Rows to be the most handy. With the high cost of Energy, it’s always good to have an additional way to Save Some in Excel!

Happy Excelling!