Find and format excel macro

Question

I need a way in excel to go through my entire workbook and find all the words with a matching case and add them into italics.

I have cells with data like so:

Percentage of CTE concentrators who have met the proficient or advanced level on the 
statewide high school mathematics assessment administered by the state under ESEA and 
who, in the reporting year, left secondary education.

I need to change all the "ESEA" into italics.

Is there a way to do this in excel or do I need a macro?

Answer 1

Here's code that will do this for you:

Sub Macro1()
Dim sFirstAddress As String, rgFound As Range
Const sSearch As String = "ESEA"

Set rgFound = Cells(1, 1)

Do While Not rgFound Is Nothing

    Set rgFound = Cells.Find(What:=sSearch, After:=rgFound, LookIn:=xlFormulas, LookAt:= _
            xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext, MatchCase:=True, _
            SearchFormat:=False)

    If rgFound.Address = sFirstAddress Then Exit Do

    If InStr(rgFound.Value, sSearch) > 0 Then
        If Len(sFirstAddress) = 0 Then sFirstAddress = rgFound.Address
        rgFound.Characters(InStr(rgFound.Value, sSearch), Len(sSearch)).Font.FontStyle = "Italic"
    End If

Loop

End Sub