One way

Assume you have the 5 strings listed in E2:E6
(eg: ABC, DEF, ...)

and the source data is running in A2 down
(eg: (11, 1 DATA, ABC, 22)DATA, etc)

Put in B2, then array-enter the formula by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER:
=INDEX(E$2:E$6,MATCH(TRUE,ISNUMBER(SEARCH(E$2:E$6, A2)),0))
Copy B2 down as far as required to return the results: ABC, DEF, etc,
depending on which string is present within the source data. It's presumed
that only one of the 5 strings in E2:E6 would be present in each source data
cell, if at all.

Replace SEARCH with FIND if you want the expression's search to be case
sensitive. FIND is case sensitive.
--
Max
Singapore
http://savefile.com/projects/236895
xdemechanik
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"natek1234" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hey All, I am looking for an excel formula that can look into a cell
and find certain text and display it. an example may be more useful,
i have a cell with data like this in coulmns "(11, 1 DATA, ABC, 22)
DATA" and (22, 2 DATA, DEF, 33) DATA" and i need to be able to search
both those cells for "ABC" and "DEF" and if it appears, display it in
a different cell. i know how this can be done for just one string but
i will need to look for 5 different ones.