try this

=MATCH("*"&B1&"*",A1:A10,0)



On Jan 27, 1:02*am, Confused_in_Houston
wrote:
I have a text string that I want to search for in a column. *At times, it can
begin at character 1 in the text string. *At others it might begin at
character 20, others at character 40. *In other words it's random.

How can I get Excel to affirm that the text is there (or to copy that text
to an adjacent cell); regardless of the position of my sub-string within the
cell?

Thanks