Click "Home" on the Excel main menu and then select the "Find & Select" button. Press "Find" from the drop-down list to display the "Find & Replace" dialog box.
Type text that represents the data you wish to find in your XLS file into the "Find what" box. Click "Options" to reveal more conditions you can add to your search. For instance, you can choose to query that sheet only or the entire workbook full of sheets, search by rows or columns, and search through formulas, values or comments in the spreadsheet. Press "Format" if you only want to see results that match a specific format, like a font type or fill color for cells in the spreadsheet.
Check "Match entire cell contents" and "Match case" if you only want to find cells that display that exact search phrase that you typed in the "Find what" box.
Click "Find All" or "Find Next" to locate the information you need to analyze.
Select the XLS data that you want to search with your mouse. If you want to select an entire column of data, simply click the letter (such as A, B, or C) above each column.
Click the "Data" menu on the Excel main menu and then select "Filter." Arrows appear at the top of each column that you've selected indicating that you are ready to filter the information.
Click one of the arrows for the column that contains information you want to analyze. Check the information that you want to appear in your query results, then click "OK." The filter tool hides the data that you don't need to see and only lists the information that you want to analyze.
Press the "Filter" button on the toolbar again when you want to remove the filtered results.