Trying to find text inside hyperlink URL in an Excel cell

Question

Correction: FL Pro is working properly to find hyperlink URL text, either by unchecking Office/PDF enhanced file searching or by checking that option and selecting the "Deep search" setting.

I was just searching the wrong set of Excel files.

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Using FL Pro Version 8.5 - Build 2912. Looking in Excel workbooks created with Excel 2013 in .xlsx format.

I have a lot of cells with embedded hyperlinks (not the =HYPERLINK function), and I'm trying to find some that are going to break soon so I can change them. Let's say the URLs that are problematic have the string "abc123" in them.

I tried the solution from the earlier question (unchecked Office/PDF documents enhanced file searching), and that didn't find anything. I also went the other way, checked the Office/PDF enhanced search and under "Settings..." selected "Deep search." That didn't work, either.

Both methods are picking up a couple of Excel files that have the string as part of the schema/header XML or something, for example:

<mc:Choice Requires="x15"><x15ac:absPath url="D:\abc123\2018 Topic\Planning\" xmlns:x15ac="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/spreadsheetml/2010/11/ac"/></mc:Choice>

This XML snippet has the "abc123" text in it.

But FLP is not finding the search term within hyperlinks inside the cells of the worksheets.

Is there a way to get this to work?

Thanks!

Answer 1

That should work but it might be encoded differently. If you search for the file just by file name (with the Office/PDF Doc option OFF) you can have a look at the internal text by clicking on the Text tab.

Use the search box to try and find the links.

UPDATE: lrcvlk realized that his mistake was that he was only searching for .xlsx files instead of .xlsx and .xlsxm files, ie expand the search to

File name: *.xls?

Comments

Now I see my problem. I was searching for .xlsx files, and the ones I needed were actually .xlsm files. When I changed the search criteria, it found all the hits I expected.

Because this was my error, I think the best thing to do is delete the question, or at least I could edit it to say that it does work as advertised.

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I'll edit the answer to reflect the resolution.