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How To Search Text In Multiple Excel Files Quickly

How To Search Text In Multiple Excel Files Quickly 1

Working with big Excel spreadsheets never have been easy, especially when you need to search for a piece of text in a file that have thousands, even ten of thousands rows. Searching through a single file can cost you hours, if not days if you work on a slow computer. To make the matter worse, sometimes you need to search in multiple files and search for multiple strings.

Let me give you an example.

I have a imaginary store that sells auto parts. My store has over 400,000 items and they are in two separated files. Opening it on an old computer is problematic. 

search text in multiple excel files

Now, for example, I want to search for parts that contain the text “SPLS” for some reasons. If I go with the traditional way, I would press control + F (or Command + F on a Mac) to start searching. To be very honest with you, looking for results from thousands or million in my case is not an easy task.

To make the problem worse, what if I want to search for multiple text, not just one? What if you need to search for multiple text in MULTIPLE files? Excel only provides us one search box and you can search for one string of text at a time.

Are we out of luck? Is there any better way to search for:

  • Multiple text
  • In multiple Excel files

Search Text In Multiple Excel Files Using Software

Luckily, there is a better way to do this boring task, which is using a pieces of software made exactly to do this task.

Let’s have a look at the software and how it works.

As you can see, this is the software that solves the searching problem in big excel files. You see its true value when you have many files to search and many text to find. Also, the larger the files, the more time the software can save you.

This is the way this software work step by step:

  1. You select the file or files you need to search by clicking on add excel files button at the top left of the panel. You can select multiple excel files using this button.
  2. Then, enter the text you want to search in these files, you need to enter one search per line. There is no limit.
  3. Click on start searching

It takes some time for the software to go through the files and find the text you want to find. As you can guess, the bigger the files, the longer it takes to find all matches. However, in comparison to a human, the software is much quicker, by hundreds times.

You may wonder, is this for Windows only? Good news is Excel Ultimate Search works perfectly on Windows, Mac, and Linux (Ubuntu, Fedora, Centos…)

excel-ultimate-search-works-on-windows-linux-macos

Download Excel Ultimate Search

Download the app now to get instant access!

How To Search Text In Multiple Excel Files Quickly 2
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Find Big Files And Delete To Clean Up Your Computer

Find Big Files And Delete To Clean Up Your Computer 4

So I usually find out that there are old files that occupy my HDD but I don’t know which one . For example, I downloaded movies long time ago, watched but didn’t delete. I was searching for a program to help me find such files and delete them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any.

So, I decided to make one. It turns out the task was quite easy. I completed the app in just a few hours of work. You can download it here:

BigFileFinder.jar

big file finder screen

Simply run it and find the find, the tutorial can be found below.

Make sure you install JRE 8 on your computer. This application works on Mac OSX, Windows and Linux.

Happy cleaning!

 

 

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10 Hours Apps

I’ve recently posted a blog here detailing my plan to generate $10,000/month from various sources (by making software, of course). The plan was to make many apps and monetize them in a various ways. Time is limited since I still have a day job. So, I came up with the idea of 10 hours apps. The backbone of this idea is one app/game should take at most 10 hours from idea to the first MVP (most viable product) to be used by the users.

10 hours doesn’t seem to be much. However, with careful planning, I believe I can create decent apps in that time frame. 10 hours isn’t short for concentrated coding and planning.

Here is the plan that I’m going to use that 10 hours:

  • Hours 0 to 1: Drawing the interface, find out the requirements of the app, what libraries I need to use.
  • Hours 1 to 2: Break down the components that comprise the app. By doing so, I can see the map that I need to go through to actually build the app.
  • Hours 2 to 10: Build components by components until the app is completely built.

Here are the advantages of this method:

  • It makes me more time conscious: For a long time, I think time is an unlimited resources, not anymore. Careful use of time is the most important thing in life.
  • It makes progresses measurable: Instead of spending months and months on a app. I can now see how many hours I’ve worked and how much progress I’ve made.
  • It minimizes the risk of app’s failure: If the app is a failure, I will move on to next app. 10 wasted hours isn’t good but surely better than 10 months.
  • It makes me more careful when picking ideas to work on: As I have only 10 hours per project, I will need to be very careful when picking ideas to start. If projects that costs a lot more than 10 hours, it will be put on the shelf.
  • It force innovation: Limited resources promotes innovation. I will need to come up with better way to manage my time and work more efficient.

Some concerns

  • Does this mean the apps will be crappy: No, the app will be released after 10 hours of work. However, I will work to improve them gradually, depends on their potential.

So, that’s the plan, now comes the execution.

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How To Install MySQL connector for Python 3 in MacOS

Recently, I have a task involving using Python with MySQL. I needed to install MySQL connector for python but all the methods I found on the internet are not applicable. I have Python 3.7 on my Mac. Here is what I did to install mysql connector for python 3:

python3 -m pip install pymysql

Hope that helps you too. I don’t make this post longer than it should be.