On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:27:01 -0700, Sue wrote:

I have a description cell that has variable alphanumeric characters. the
first one to two numbers I would like to copy to another column for the size
of the description
i.e. AA_NAAAa NNN AA N. The number I want is the first number unless the
description shows AANNANN NNNN aAa n, I would want the first two numbers.
these numbers indicate the size of the material. I don't know if a macro
and/or a function would be the best way to go.

If there will be a maximum of two numbers in the first group of numbers, then:

=LOOKUP(9.9E+307,--MID(A1,MIN(SEARCH({0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9},A1&"012345 6789")),
ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1)))))

If there could be more than two numbers, but you only want to return the first
two, then:

=LEFT(LOOKUP(9.9E+307,--MID(A1,MIN(SEARCH({0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9},
A1&"0123456789")),ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1))))),2 )

or, to return the value as numeric rather than text:

=--LEFT(LOOKUP(9.9E+307,--MID(A1,MIN(SEARCH({0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9},
A1&"0123456789")),ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1))))),2 )
--ron