Try something like this:

=IF(COUNTIF(string,"*"&substring&"*"),FIND(substri ng,string,1),0)

Does that help?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2003, WinXP


"mywebaccts (at) PLUGcomcast.net" <"myweb" wrote:

I have a file of text strings in which some of the strings have a
substring I'm looking for, and others don't.

I tried using the FIND command to determine if the substring exists for
each text string, but when it doesn't ... I get #VALUE! returned.

I would have assumed that since FIND returns the index of the substring,
I would get something nice like "-1" returned when it's not there.

The problem is ... how do I manage the #VALUE! returns? I mean, is that
some kind of value I can test for? For instance, if I wanted to just
list the index of the substring, or write a "0" if it's not there, I
would try something like ...

=IF(FIND(substring,string,1)0,FIND(substring,stri ng,1),0)

But of course, it doesn't work. Can anyone help me?

Thanks!
Jack