Range.FindPrevious method (Excel)

Continues a search that was begun with the Find method. Finds the previous cell that matches those same conditions and returns a Range object that represents that cell. Doesn't affect the selection or the active cell.

Syntax

expression.FindPrevious (Before)

expression A variable that represents a Range object.

Parameters

Name	Required/Optional	Data type	Description
Before	Optional	Variant	The cell before which you want to search. This corresponds to the position of the active cell when a search is done from the user interface. Note that Before must be a single cell in the range. Remember that the search begins before this cell; the specified cell isn't searched until the method wraps back around to this cell. If this argument isn't specified, the search starts before the upper-left cell in the range.

Return value

Range

Remarks

When the search reaches the beginning of the specified search range, it wraps around to the end of the range. To stop a search when this wraparound occurs, save the address of the first found cell, and then test each successive found-cell address against this saved address.

Example

This example shows how the FindPrevious method is used with the Find and FindNext methods. Before running this example, make sure that Sheet1 contains at least two occurrences of the word Phoenix in column B.

Sub FindTest() 
 Dim fc As Range 
 Set fc = Worksheets("Sheet1").Columns("B").Find(what:="Phoenix") 
 MsgBox "The first occurrence is in cell " & fc.Address 
 Set fc = Worksheets("Sheet1").Columns("B").FindNext(after:=fc) 
 MsgBox "The next occurrence is in cell " & fc.Address 
 Set fc = Worksheets("Sheet1").Columns("B").FindPrevious(after:=fc) 
 MsgBox "The previous occurrence is in cell " & fc.Address 
End Sub

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