Use the MID and FIND functions eg:
=MID(A1, FIND("!", A1)+2, 5)

where 5 is longer than the longest number of digits in the row numbers you
are expecting.
the +2 takes account of only a single-letter column reference, if you can't
be sure that is always the case then wrap the above is an
IF(ISERR(VALUE(MID(blah))), ,) to test whether you caught an extra letter.
If you have 2007, this would be a neater way to trap that error:
=IFERROR(VALUE(MID(A1,FIND("!",A1)+2,5)),VALUE(MID (A1,FIND("!",A1)+3,5)))
--
Adam Vero
MCP, MOS Master, MLSS, CWNA
http://veroblog.wordpress.com
http://www.meteorit.co.uk


"Hilton" wrote:

I would like to extract the row number in a reference formula

formula in cell "= Bef22022007!F293"

How can I extract the 293?

Thanks
Hilton