Most texts contained in an MS Excel file are saved in two structures:

1. The text listing.
2. The cell information.

1. Text Listing

The text listings contain the texts themselves organized in a list. A text can be referred to by its position on the list. If I have a list as follows:

• Peter Smith
• Sam Lam
• Lucas Mac
• Silvia Johnson
• Rick Rose
• Anne Morrison
• Chuck Jones
• Jane Flowers
• Liam Peters

... I will know text #4 corresponds to "Silvia Johnson".

2. Cell information

This structure contains the information for each cell. This information is composed of the cell’s position (sheet, column and row) and the text reference in the "Text listing" structure as explained above.

Following the example, a cell containing the text "Silvia Johnson" placed in the cell D12 of the 3rd sheet of an MS Excel file, will contain the following information:

• Sheet #3
• Column #4 (#1 would be column "A", #2 would be column "B", and so on)
• Row #12
• Text #4

If different cells contain the exact same text, all of them will have the same reference number to the "Text listing".

Is "Lost string" recovery an option for me?