Office Content Search
日本語
Search text inside Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in a folder — and see exactly where it appears.
Features
- Pinpoint locations — Results show where each match is:
Sheet1 › B12, Body ¶24, First Page Header, Slide 3 › Notes, Chart "Sales" › Series Name.
- No Microsoft Office required — Files are read directly, so searching is fast and works without Office installed.
- Multiple keywords — Separate keywords with spaces, use
"double quotes" for phrases, and choose Match any (OR) or Match all (AND).
- Forgiving matching — Case-insensitive and full-width/half-width-insensitive (
ＡＢＣ matches abc).
- Dates as displayed — Excel date cells can be found by the text shown in Excel, such as
10/21/2026 or 2026年10月21日.
- Search form in the sidebar — Enter keywords, choose a folder, and include subfolders in one place. You can cancel a running search.
- Highlighted results — Matches are highlighted in the results tree. Click a result to open the file in its default application.
- Copy file names and paths — From the context menu, or with
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+Alt+C (Cmd on macOS) in the results view.
- Results as text — Open the list of results in an editor tab to read, save or share.
- Local only — All processing happens on your machine. Nothing is sent anywhere.
- English and Japanese UI
What Is Searched
| Format |
Searched content |
Word (.docx) |
Body paragraphs and tables, text boxes, headers and footers, footnotes, endnotes, comments, charts, SmartArt |
Excel (.xlsx) |
Cell values, shapes and text boxes, charts (titles, axis titles, series names), chart sheets, SmartArt |
Excel 97-2003 (.xls) |
Cell values (text in shapes and charts is not searched) |
PowerPoint (.pptx) |
Slide text and tables, speaker notes, charts, SmartArt |
Excel cells are matched as follows (the same for .xlsx and .xls):
- Dates are matched by the text displayed in Excel, e.g.
10/21/2026, 2026年10月21日, 10/21/2026 9:30.
- Other numbers are matched by their values, regardless of the number format (
1234, even if displayed as 1,234).
Usage
- Click the Office Search icon in the Activity Bar.
- Enter keywords.
- Choose Match any (OR) or Match all (AND). AND means the file contains every keyword (not necessarily in the same cell or paragraph).
- Enter a folder or click Browse..., and select Include subfolders if needed.
- Optionally select Also open the results as text.
- Click Search.
You can also right-click a folder in the Explorer and select Search Office Files in This Folder.
Files that could not be searched are listed under Skipped with the reason.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Description |
officeSearch.includeSubfolders |
true |
Include subfolders by default |
officeSearch.excludeFolders |
[".git", "node_modules"] |
Folder names to skip when searching subfolders |
officeSearch.maxFileSizeMB |
50 |
Files larger than this (MB) are skipped |
officeSearch.maxHitsPerFile |
200 |
Maximum hits listed per file |
officeSearch.excelShortDateFormat |
"" |
Format used to match Excel dates entered without a specific format, e.g. yyyy/m/d. If empty, it is chosen by the VS Code display language |
You can change these settings by searching for Office Content Search in the VS Code Settings (Ctrl+,).
If dates are not found
Dates entered in Excel without a specific format (the "Short Date" format) are displayed according to the regional settings of the PC running Excel. Because the display format is not stored in the file, this extension chooses the format as follows:
- The format set in
officeSearch.excelShortDateFormat, if any
- Otherwise,
yyyy/m/d if the VS Code display language is Japanese, and m/d/yyyy for other languages
For example, if you use VS Code in English but Excel shows dates as 2026/10/21, dates are matched as 10/21/2026 and 2026/10/21 is not found. In that case, set the format to match your Excel:
"officeSearch.excelShortDateFormat": "yyyy/m/d"
Limitations
- Legacy Word and PowerPoint formats (
.doc, .ppt) are not supported and are listed as skipped.
- In
.xls files, only cell values are searched. Text in shapes and charts is not searched.
- Password-protected or encrypted files (including files protected by sensitivity labels) are skipped.
- Only saved content is searched. Save your changes in Office before searching.
- Dates displayed in the Japanese era calendar (e.g. 令和) are matched in the Western calendar (e.g.
令和8年10月21日 is matched as 2026年10月21日).
- Excel formulas themselves are not searched (only their results).
- Word text is matched per paragraph. A phrase that spans two paragraphs is not found.
- Text deleted with Track Changes is not searched.
- In remote environments (WSL, SSH, Dev Containers), opening a result may not work depending on your environment.
Requirements
VS Code 1.85 or later.
Contributing
Bug reports and feature requests are welcome on GitHub Issues.
If a file is needed to reproduce a problem, please attach a sample file with fictional content instead of a real business document.
License
MIT
For the licenses of the libraries used by this extension, see ThirdPartyNotices.txt.
This extension is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Microsoft, Word, Excel and PowerPoint are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.
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