Numbers Find & Replace in a Specific Column

Your observation is correct; Find searches the whole document.

Your choices, as I see them, are to:

• Set up the Find and replace dialogue, then use the > button to step through the finds, at each stop, clicking Replace and Find where you want to replace the found value with the value you/ve written into the Replace with… space,

OR to:

• Select all cells of the column where you want to do the find/Replace. Copy.
• Open a new, blank document, click (once) on the top cell of a column in the table shown in that document. Paste.
• Perform the Find/Replace routine, using Replace All, on that document.
• Select the column containing the changed values. Copy.
• Return to the original document, select the top cell of the original data column. Paste.
• Close the (temporary) New document without saving.

The second option looks longer, but will likely take less time.

Regards,

Barry

You can use this 'Find Replace in Selection' (Dropbox download) Automator Quick Action (also known as an Automator Service). It contains a shore AppleScript.

Once the Quick Action/Service is installed, you select the cells where you want to do a find & replace (in your case select an entire column), choose Find Replace in Selection from your Numbers > Services menu, and follow the prompts.

To install just double-click the downloaded .workflow package. You may then need to give permission at System Preferences > Security & Privacy and make sure Automator and Numbers are listed and checked at System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Accessibility. Installation should take less than a minute.

If you find you don't need it any more you can uninstall it just as you would any other Automator Quick Action/Service. In Finder hold down the option button and in the menu Go > Library > Services and delete the way you would any other item in Finder.

SG

You can give feedback to Apple via Numbers > Provide Numbers Feedback in your menu.

Meanwhile who not give the Service a try? Trying it only takes a minute or so, less than the time it takes to duplicate your work into a separate document or go to Google Sheets. It effectively acts as an add-in to Numbers that you can access from your menu. I’ve been using it for a long time as it is quite handy.

SG