The Special Uses of Go To Special in Excel - By Joseph Helstrom, CPA

Nov 1, 2026

Hidden on Excel’s Home ribbon in the Find & Select area, Go To Special helps accountants quickly locate and select cells based on specific criteria. The article demonstrates practical CPA-focused uses: locating error values caused by divide-by-zero formulas, highlighting blank cells in worksheet ranges, finding cells containing formulas for auditing, and identifying formula precedents and dependents to visually trace direct and indirect cell relationships for review and validation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryTechnology

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Identifying Errors in a Worksheet

Finding Blank Cells

Finding Cells that Contain Formulas

Finding Formula Precedents and Dependents

The Special Uses of Go To Special in Excel-By Joseph Helstrom, CPA Hidden on the Home ribbon in Microsoft Excel, within the Find & Select Button, is an Excel feature that has some very special and generally unknown uses for the CPA. The feature is Go To Special. It’s the fourth option on the list when the Find & Select button is clicked. When you click Go To Special, there are a myriad of options presented. These options permit you to easily find and select cells that contain specific types of data or find and select cells that meet specific criteria. Only the most useful of these options to the CPA will be covered in this article. However, you may wish to explore the other options as well. Identifying Errors in a Worksheet When working with large Excel worksheets, there are times when you quickly want to find certain things. One of those is errors. Go To Special allows you to identify error values in cells very quickly. Assume the following data in an Excel worksheet. The results in column C are simply dividing cells in column B by the corresponding cells in column A. There are two errors in the data since the formula is attempting to divide by zero. To find these errors, select the range A1:C8 and on the Home ribbon, click the button for Find & Select, then click Go To Special. Click the radio button for Formulas and uncheck everything except Errors as shown below. Click OK. Now, the two error values are highlighted with a box. Use the Tab key to toggle through the list of error values. This is especially important in a large worksheet. The Tab key will cycle through all the errors until you click on a cell within the worksheet. Finding Blank Cells When working with large worksheets or importing data to an Excel worksheet, it’s useful to know where there are blanks in cells. Go To Special is also useful in identifying blanks. Using the data below, Go To Special may be used to identify blank cells in the same manner as described above. First, select the area to be searched. In this case, select A1:F1 . Then, click on Find & Select, then Go To Special. Select the radio button for Blanks and click OK. The two blank cells in the worksheet are now highlighted and you may use the Tab key once again to toggle through them. This is a much easier and more exact method of identifying blanks in the worksheet than scanning the data. To exit, select any cell in the worksheet. Finding Cells that Contain Formulas Similar to the above examples, you can also use Go To Special to find those cells that contain formulas. This is especially useful if you are auditing a worksheet created by someone else. You can specify the type of formula that you wish to locate. The options are numbers, text, logical or error. We have already used the error option to locate those formulas that only contain an error. Other options identify those formulas that are numeric (=A1*B1), text (=len(A1)), or logical (=if(A1>0,”True”,“False”)) . Using the example, below, the focus will be on simply identifying all cells that contain a formula. The example multiplies the results in column A by the results in column B using column C, then sums the products obtained in column C. Multiplication formulas exist in C1:C3 and there is a Sum formula in C4 . Using Go To Special, let’s identify all the formulas in this worksheet for further review. First, select the area to be searched. In this case, select A1:C4 . Then, click on Find & Select, then Go To Special. Click on the Formulas radio button and leave all option boxes checked. Click OK. C1:C4 is highlighted which identifies the cells that contain a formula. You know which cells may require further review. Finding Formula Precedents and Dependents What’s a formula precedent? These are the cells that are used by the formula to arrive at the result. Seeing the cells that are used in formulas is a handy review tool. In complex spreadsheets, cell references may be off by just one ce

FAQs

How can you use Go To Special to find error values in an Excel worksheet?

Select the target range, open Home > Find & Select > Go To Special, choose Formulas, and keep only Errors checked. Click OK to highlight the error cells and use Tab to move through them.

How do you highlight blank cells with Go To Special?

Select the area to search, open Find & Select > Go To Special, choose Blanks, and click OK. The blank cells are highlighted for quick navigation with Tab.

How can Go To Special help audit formulas in a worksheet?

Use Go To Special with the Formulas option to locate cells that contain formulas, leaving the relevant option boxes checked. It helps you identify which cells may need further review.

What is the difference between formula precedents and dependents in Go To Special?

Precedents are the input cells a formula uses to produce its result (direct or all levels). Dependents are the formulas that use a particular cell’s data (direct or all levels), enabling you to trace how changes propagate.

Nov 1, 2026

Uploaded by Lucas Martin