davids wrote:
I am editing an excel database that has been worked on previously in
either a different format or under a different operating system so
throughout the spreadsheet characters such as "?" or various other
shapes appear.I have tried searching for these characters but excel
returns a "Cannot find the data you are searching for" message. is
there anyway i can find and replace these characters without manually
scanning through the data?

Works fine for me.
Can you post a copy of the sheet somewhere?