Try this:

=LOOKUP(10^10,--MID(A1,MIN(FIND({0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9},A1&"01234567 89")),ROW(INDIRECT("1:255"))))

If the cell is either empty or doesn't have a number in the string the
formula will return #N/A. Also, it will extract the *first* number it finds:

xxx 10.5 yy zzz 5.5

The result would be 10.5

Biff

"Jan" wrote in message
...
i have the following text string
"Home: installation on Cognos (5.5 hrs)" the number represents the number
of
hours i want to have separated from the text" difficulty is the fact this
can
be displayed as 5.5hr, or 5.5 uur. secondly this doesn't necessary is 3
positions. could also be 5 uur. the only common part is that the data is
ALWAYS at the right hand site of the text string