My spreadsheet is very large (to say the least)
over 10,000 line down and through Z across. The
'word' would be in column "U".
What I'm trying to do is delete all the lines that
have this specific word in it.

To suit your set-up (as you have now clarified above),
try this ..

Assuming your source data is in Sheet1, in A1:Z10000 (say),
and col U is the col to be searched for the specific word

Using an adjacent col to the right of the data, say col AA?

Put in AA1:
=IF(U1="","",IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("specific_word",U1 )),"",ROW()))
Copy AA1 down as far as there is data in col U

In a new Sheet2
---------
Put in A1:
=IF(ISERROR(SMALL(Sheet1!$AA:$AA,ROWS(Sheet1!$A$1: A1))),"",
INDEX(Sheet1!A:A,MATCH(SMALL(Sheet1!$AA:$AA,
ROWS(Sheet1!$A$1:A1)),Sheet1!$AA:$AA,0)))

Copy A1 across to Z1, fill down to Z10000
(cover the same range as in Sheet1)

Sheet2 will return the desired results, i.e. only those lines w/o the word
in col U in Sheet1, all neatly bunched at the top

If required, kill the formulas in Sheet2 with
an in-place copy paste special values ok
--
Rgds
Max
xl 97
---
Singapore, GMT+8
xdemechanik
http://savefile.com/projects/236895
--
-- Linda wrote:
Hi Max and I have no idea how to thank you for your
help - but..... I'm not sure I understand exactly
what you wrote. I know how to use Excel but I
couldn't quite understand what you said to do in the
formula.

My spreadsheet is very large (to say the least)
over 10,000 line down and through Z across. The
'word' would be in column "U". Are you telling me
to still use conditional formatting? I'm sorry I
didn't understand, can you explain again please.
Would really appreciate it.

What I'm trying to do is delete all the lines that
have this specific word in it.

Thanks again for your help

Linda