not sure what xp search is doing, but to find it, in excel:
file/open/tools/find will bring them up

"Tim Childs" wrote:

Hi

I want to search for a numeric value (e.g. 283.57) in a large number of
Excel files stored in a directory.

While text seems to be stored as ASCII code and is visible in a file editor,
the numbers in Excel appear to be coded and certainly the XP file search
does not <do the business.

Are there any ways round this? (and, out of interest, can anyone tell me how
the numbers are stored?)

Many thanks

Tim

PS I have done some searches on the archive but not turned up anything
relevant/helpful.