Try

=IF(ISNUMBER(FIND("XXX",C3)),"Y","N").

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HTH

Bob

"Eric_NY" wrote in message
...
I need a formula which returns Y if a cell contains a string and N if not.

Here's a start: IF(FIND("XXX",C3),"Y","N"). But the trouble is that if the
target string is not found, it returns a #VALUE! error.

I can of course fix that by something like
IF(ISERROR(FIND("XXX",C3),"N","Y"). But this seems unnecessarily awkward.
Is
there a simpler solution?

I'm using Excel 2003.

Thanks.