Batch replacement of multiple value groups in an Excel worksheet was a real work requirement I once encountered: there was a roster containing tens of thousands of rows, and the values in the roster column had been entered in a highly inconsistent manner. The same address was not entered in exactly the same form, making it impossible to conduct data analysis directly or submit the data to a database. During data cleaning, values had to be processed one by one. For example, “District A Office,” “District A,” and “Office A” all had the standard name “First Office,” while “District B Office,” “Office B,” and “District B” all corresponded to “Second Office.” There were dozens of such mapping relationships in total. The built-in Find and Replace function in Excel could replace only one group of values at a time, so I had to repeat the process of opening the replacement dialog box, entering values, replacing, and confirming dozens of times. In the process, I even mixed up two groups of values and had to start over. Even more frustratingly, the same task arrived again the next day, and I had to repeat the entire process once more. When the task arrived for the third time, I searched online to see whether there was a simpler method, but I found none, so I decided to write one myself.
At the time, I originally intended to implement it with a VBA macro, but later found that VBA macros were not very convenient to reuse and had a relatively high threshold for use. After weighing the options, I felt that making it an Excel native add-in would provide the best experience: replacements would apply directly to the current selection, and users would not need to leave Excel. Considering generality, different tasks might involve different mapping relationships, so the mapping relationships should be saved in the form of replacement schemes, allowing users to add new mapping relationships or create different groups at any time. Ultimately, I first used the simplest CSV file to store the “source value → target value” mapping table. One advantage of using a CSV file for mapping relationships is that replacement schemes can be viewed, edited, and shared with Notepad. One scheme corresponds to one set of mapping relationships, users can maintain multiple schemes, and replacement supports options such as full match/partial match, case sensitivity, and ignoring leading and trailing spaces. The add-in toolbar provides four buttons: Batch Replace, Scheme Management, Settings, and About. The left side of the scheme selection window is a category tree, and the right side provides real-time search, making it convenient to use.I have directly named this tool “Excel Batch Replace”.
When encountering data that requires replacement of multiple value groups, users can select the area to be replaced, click “Batch Replace,” and select a “Replacement Scheme”; no matter how much data there is, it can be replaced in one operation. Finance personnel can use it to batch-replace account codes with account names; administrative personnel can replace data such as “Male/M/MALE” at once with standardized gender values. It can handle any scenario in which one set of values needs to be replaced in bulk with another set of values; at least it has been extremely useful to me.