Your question is subject to a bit of interpretation
see John Green's macro solution 1999-06-15 if you are talking about
numbers being wider than the column
http://groups.google.com/groups?oi=djq&ic=1&selm=an_489629650
Don't actually think that is what you meant but if it is also look at your
Excel help if you have any Excel up through 2000 which still has an index
the # is one of the first entries in HELP from the index (tab).
If you mean text data within a cell that contains a # but is not visible:
Escape characters in formats and in System Search use a backslash
(in Unix it is escape character for #,@, and $), in Find/Replace use a tilde.
to search for * or ? or ~, you enter it as ~*, ~? and ~~, respectively.
A bit similar to escape characters but nothing to do with FIND:
In headers and footers to see an ampersand (&) double them as
in AT&&T. Double quotes with double quotes are doubled.