a single quote in excel is also an indicator that the cell will contain text
only. It is used when you want to enter some mathematical expression a text.
That is why the 'find' cannot find it! Try pressing ctrl+a, right click
paste special and formulae. Repeate and paste special formats. That should do
the trick.

"Hari" wrote:

Hi,

I have many non contiguous cells (anywhere within the range D2 and
G200)where I have put only a single quote within the cell and now I
want to make all such cell blank. The cells which doesnt have single
quote have valid data which I dont want to remove/delete

I chose replace feature in excel 2000 and within Find field indicated
a single quote and he Replace field I kept blank.

Strangely I get the message "MS excel cant find matching data to
replace...."
Why is it happening?

One more doubt. Sometimes when Excel cant find the matching data then
the message which gets displayed comes in the standard message box
(similar to the VBA msgbox command) but sometimes I get the message in
that yellow msgbox background with the Excel's assistant tagging
along.
What determines the difference the kind of msgbox getting displayed?

Regards,
Hari
India