Searching every open file
Look for a name, number or phrase in all your open files at once, see which files hold it, and jump to the cell.
Find (Cmd+F) looks inside the file you are on. When you have several files open and want to know which of them mention a name, an invoice number or an email address, use search across files instead.
Opening it
Press Shift+Cmd+F (Shift+Ctrl+F on Windows and Linux), or choose Edit > Search all files. You can also ask Bix, for example “search all files for Smith”, and it opens the same panel with the word already typed. Search is free in every edition.
Reading the results
Results appear as you type, in two steps so one noisy file cannot bury the others.
- Files first. The files that contain a match are listed first, each with how many matches it holds. Files with no match are left out.
- Then the matches in one file. Click a file to see its matches: the column, the row number, and the cell text with your word marked. Matches are listed ten to a page, up to 200 per file.
- Jump to the cell. Click any match. BigXL switches to that file and puts the cursor on the cell.
Options
Match case is off by default, so smith finds Smith and SMITH. Turn it on when capitals matter.
Similar spellings also finds close matches, so a search for Jon Smith finds John Smith. It applies from five letters, so short words stay exact, and it never matches across different numbers: a search for invoice 1042 does not return 1043.
What it searches
Search follows each tab as it stands now.
- Filters count. A filtered tab only returns the rows you can see.
- Masked columns are searched as masked. A masked email is found by its masked text, never by the hidden original. Searching cannot reveal what a mask hides.
- Files that are not ready yet are listed as “Not searched yet”.
Search runs on your computer and nothing is uploaded. It reads files in place, so large files are searched without loading them into memory. After you edit a cell, retype the word to refresh the results.