Hi bobadigilatis,

This may be the easiest way:

=itSEARCH(A3,"[^ ]{1,}%",,3)

See:
http://precisioncalc.com/it/itSEARCH.html

The "[^ ]" tells it to look for any character other than a space. The
"{1,}" tells it to repeat that (any character other than an space) any
number of times, though at least once. The "%" looks for "%". As long
as there is a space right before the string you want to retrieve, and
no spaces within the string you want to retrieve, this should work.
With your three examples, it returns:

42%
42.25%
41.3%


itSEARCH is added by my Excel add-in, inspector text. You can download
the free edition of inspector text here and use it as long as you wish:

http://PrecisionCalc.com


Good Luck,


Greg Lovern
http://PrecisionCalc.com
More Power In Excel


bobadigilatis wrote:
i am trying to extract a percentage from a longer string of data, till now i
have been using the following formula:

Data within Cell A3: bunnies 12/18 40% 22.7 ABCD
=MID(A3,(FIND("%",A3)-2),FIND("%",A3,3)-(FIND("%",A3)-3))

This formula will return the value 40%.

My problem is i am now using percentages with decimals, eg: 40.2%, the above
formula returns:

Data within Cell A3: bunnies 12/18 40.2% 22.7 ABCD
=MID(A3,(FIND("%",A3)-2),FIND("%",A3,3)-(FIND("%",A3)-3))
.2% is returned.

Unfortunatly the number of digits the percentage value contains is not fixed
(which is what my last formula was based upon) eg: the values 40% 40.1% or
42.52% may appear, not 40.00% or 40.10%

Only one % symbol will appear wihin the string, the percentage value will
always be directly preceded by the % cymbol (i.e. no space between the number
and the symbol), if the percentage is to be a decimal it will only be a
maximum of two decimal places. There will always be a space between the
unwanted data and the first number of the percentage. The 'decimal point' (.)
is not unique to the percentage value within the string

E.g.

12. bunnies 42% abc
1.3 bunnies 42.25% 123
12 ele.-cats 41.3% juka 15