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Somebody here suggested that you can add regular expressions in Excel How to use Regular Expressions (Regex) in Microsoft Excel both in-cell and loops

Before I jump into the additional steps necessary to make regular expressions work, I am curious to know whether I will be able to use regular expressions with the built-in Find and Replace dialog in Excel 2013/2016 if I follow the steps outlined above?

I know that I can use the wild cards * in Excel, but not sure of the other options available if I enable Regular expressions.

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alpha_989
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  • The examples you link to are dependent only on the VBScript regular expressions library - that isn't a part of Office, but is typically (always?) present on Windows PC's (note this would not fly on a Mac) so it shouldn't make any difference which version you're using [on Windows].. – Tim Williams Nov 23 '16 at 22:57
  • I understand you can use regular experessions once you install the VBscript library in functions, but I was wondering is whether I would be able to use regular expressions using the "Find and replace" dialog box? Find and replace is just quicker to find particular cells rather than using the filter option or using function in cells, when you have a large partially undstrucred work sheet – alpha_989 Nov 23 '16 at 23:46
  • The built-in Find/Replace has a fairly limited set of options: these are distinct from the methods described in the answers to your linked question. – Tim Williams Nov 24 '16 at 00:26
  • Let me clarify.. I was asking.. if I install the VBscript regular expressions addon in the link above.. will I be able to search using regular expressions using the built-in "Find/Replace"? I know about the limitations of Find/Replace... that is what I am trying to overcome using this addon.. – alpha_989 Nov 24 '16 at 02:14
  • No - you can use it in VBA but not in the built in dialogs. It's not really an add-in, just something you can use from a script. – Tim Williams Nov 24 '16 at 03:57
  • Making this in-built functionality has been suggested in User Voice. MSFT are looking at it. Time to implementation is anyone's guess. – brettdj Nov 24 '16 at 04:06
  • Ok thank you.. do you know of any addins that might give this functionality? has anybody tried this: http://www.codedawn.com/excel-add-ins.php – alpha_989 Nov 27 '16 at 23:52

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No - once you have reference the regular expressions library you will be able to use regular expressions in VBA code, but there won't be any new options in the Find and Replace dialog:

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Robin Mackenzie
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