On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 05:59:00 -0800, lawson
wrote:

thank you very much for taking the time to do this for me, it works
beautifully. there is jsut one problem in that if the formula has a cell
reference with a '$' in it (ie. $D$4 or D$4), it does not recognize the cell
reference. is there a quick fix to this?

There should be but it'll have to wait.

For now, use this for "pattern" and it should at least allow you to match the
form D$4

It will not match absolute column references, but that should be doable once I
have a chance to sit down and work it out.

([^:$]|^)\b(([A-Z]|[A-I][A-V])\$?([1-9]\d{0,3}|[1-5]\d{0,4}|6[0-5][0-4]\d\d|655[0-2]\d|6553[0-6]))\b(?!:)


--ron