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Spotlight will not search inside Excel files
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Illinois, USA
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Spotlight used to search inside my excel files, but now it does not. It searches inside just about every other kind of document though, including Word. I recently did a wipe/reinstall of my hd, so I'm guessing that something went bad there. Does anyone have a fix?
iMac G5, 10.4.11
Thanks,
Dave
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Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: San Jose, CA
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Which version of Office are you using and are you updated to the latest? I seem to recall this being added in one of the many Office 2008 updates.
Steve
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Celebrating 10 years and 4000 posts on MacNN!
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Aug 2005
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I just did an experiment with two files, one being an Excel 2004 file and one being an Excel 2008 file. I have both versions of Excel on my computer. Spotlight searched for and found a character string inside each of the two files successfully. It works on both types of files.
You can re-index your spotlight if yours is not finding everything it should.
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iMac Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 GHz, 4 Gig RAM, 10.6.8
Macbook Pro Retina Display 15", 16 GB RAM, 10.7.4
iMac G5 2GHz, 1.5 GB RAM, 10.5.8
Macbook Air Core 2 Duo 4 Gig RAM, 10.6.8
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Illinois, USA
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I'm using Office 2004.
I'll try re-indexing...thanks
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Illinois, USA
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I re-indexed twice, but it still won't search inside Excel files. I know it did this before, so I'm open to other suggestions.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Durham, NC
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Right, you're using Office 2004, but you haven't mentioned whether you applied any of the subsequent updates. Office 2004 was released almost a year before Tiger, which introduced Spotlight. So if you reinstalled Office from DVD after wiping your HD, it's possible you're using a version that predates whatever minor update introduced Spotlight compatibility. Run Microsoft AutoUpdate (I forget where it is in relation to your Office/Applications folders, but you can find it with Spotlight ), let it install whatever it finds, then try your search again.
P.S. I just noticed that the latest Office 2004 update ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968695) requires that some of the prior ones be installed. So you may want to re-run AutoUpdate after it finishes to see if it finds anything newer. Lather rinse repeat until it tells you you're completely up to date.
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Last edited by slugslugslug; Oct 9, 2009 at 05:57 PM.
Reason: Added post script)
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Illinois, USA
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Thanks for the suggestions. I ran the Office updater several times when I reinstalled office. I just checked and there are no new updates. Maybe I'll try reinstalling Office...
Also, like I said above -- Spotlight searches inside Word files fine. Strange...
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Last edited by Dave N; Oct 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM.
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Fresh-Faced Recruit
Join Date: Oct 2009
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I had the same problem with Excel 2004, even though I had applied the most recent updates. Spotlight was searching in recent files, but not older files.
I then opened the old files and resaved them. Each time, Excel asked if I wanted to save the file in the new format. After saving them, Spotlight searched the files properly.
(And yes, this was a time-consuming hassle. I couldn't think of a faster way to get Spotlight working on those old files.)
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Dedicated MacNNer
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Illinois, USA
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I appreciate everyone's help, but unfortunately none of the above suggestions worked for me.
I finally solved the problem by replacing the "Microsoft Office.mdimporter" file in the Library/Spotlight directory. I downloaded the file from here:
Downloads
After replacing the file, I forced a complete re-index of the hard drive by: go to the Spotlight system preference pane, click the Privacy tab, add the entire hard drive to the privacy list, wait 5 min, remove the hard drive from the privacy list. This will initiate a re-index.
Anyway, that's what worked for me (and believe me, I tried a lot of things!). Hopefully anyone else having the same problem will find this information helpful.
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Mac Elite
Join Date: Nov 1999
Location: Milwaukee
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Why not just use Find within Excel?
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Ya gotta applaud those bunnies for sacrificing their hearing just so some guy in Yonkers can have better TV reception.
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