On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:36:02 -0700, J741
wrote:

Hi.

I have a spreadsheet with almost 5000 rows with about 15 columns of data, 2
columns of which contain sentences, phrases, or paragraphs of comments
entered by users.

What I need to have as an end result is a list of all unique words found in
those two columns, along with the number of occurrences of each word. I will
then use this to further analyze the data in the spreadsheet.

Right now, I do this manually and it takes a VERY long time for me to do so
(over 200 man-hours). So, I really need to automate this somehow.

The problem is, I have no idea how to begin, because the words will not be
by themselves in their own cell (so I cant use the auto filter functions,
pivot tables, or anything else I can think of), but will be part of groups of
words or symbols within multiple cells.

I think this will need to be done programmatically with code, scripts,
macros, or some other method with which I am not familiar, but I am just not
sure.

Can anyone help me with this? Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Is there anything already built in to excel to do this?

- James.

Here's a start.

You'll need to properly set the range to process (rSrc in the code) and the
range where you want the results (rDest in the code) to match your sheets.

For example, you might set rsrc = range("A1:B5000") to encompass 5000 lines in
two columns.

And, of course, you'll need to set rDest = some cell that is outside your data
range.

I assumed you wanted the results sorted by frequency of the word, with the most
common word being first; but this can be easily changed.

Note also that I formatted the entire first column of rDest as TEXT. Without
this, any numeric strings in the data would be changed to numbers (if we left
the format as General). So long strings might get truncated, or displayed in
scientific notation; and leading zeros would be stripped off.

Also, for this initial example, words are defined as strings containing only
letters, digits, slash or a hyphen. This is done in order to remove
punctuation. But it will also remove other substrings that might include other
characters. If this will be an issue, changes can be easily made.

To enter this Macro (Sub), <alt-F11 opens the Visual Basic Editor.
Ensure your project is highlighted in the Project Explorer window.
Then, from the top menu, select Insert/Module and
paste the code below into the window that opens.

To use this Macro (Sub), <alt-F8 opens the macro dialog box. Select the macro
by name, and <RUN.

========================================
Option Explicit
Sub UniqueWordList()
Dim rSrc As Range, rDest As Range, c As Range
Dim cWordList As Collection
Dim res() As Variant
Dim w() As String
Dim i As Long

Set cWordList = New Collection
Set rSrc = Range("A1:B22")
Set rDest = Range("M1")
rDest.EntireColumn.NumberFormat = "@"
For Each c In rSrc
w = Split(c.Value)
For i = 0 To UBound(w)
w(i) = StripWord(w(i))
If Not w(i) = "" Then
On Error Resume Next
cWordList.Add Item:=w(i), Key:=w(i)
On Error GoTo 0
End If
Next i
Next c

'transfer words to results array
ReDim res(1 To cWordList.Count, 0 To 1)
For i = 1 To cWordList.Count
res(i, 0) = cWordList(i)
Next i

'get counts
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
For Each c In rSrc
res(i, 1) = res(i, 1) + CountWord(c.Value, res(i, 0))
Next c
Next i

'sort alpha: d=0; sort numeric d=1
'there are various ways of sorting
BubbleSort res, 1
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
rDest.Offset(i, 0).Value = res(i, 0)
rDest.Offset(i, 1).Value = res(i, 1)
Next i
End Sub
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
Set re = Nothing
End Function
Private Function CountWord(ByVal s As String, sPat) As Long
Dim re As Object, mc As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
re.Pattern = "\b" & sPat & "\b"

Set mc = re.Execute(s)
CountWord = mc.Count
End Function
Private Sub BubbleSort(TempArray As Variant, d As Long) 'd is 0 based dimension
Dim temp(0, 1) As Variant
Dim i As Integer
Dim NoExchanges As Integer

' Loop until no more "exchanges" are made.
Do
NoExchanges = True

' Loop through each element in the array.
For i = LBound(TempArray) To UBound(TempArray) - 1

' If the element is less than the element
' following it, exchange the two elements.
' change "<" to "" to sort ascending
If TempArray(i, d) < TempArray(i + 1, d) Then
NoExchanges = False
temp(0, 0) = TempArray(i, 0)
temp(0, 1) = TempArray(i, 1)
TempArray(i, 0) = TempArray(i + 1, 0)
TempArray(i, 1) = TempArray(i + 1, 1)
TempArray(i + 1, 0) = temp(0, 0)
TempArray(i + 1, 1) = temp(0, 1)

End If
Next i
Loop While Not (NoExchanges)
End Sub
======================================
--ron

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:41:46 -0400, Ron Rosenfeld
wrote:

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:36:02 -0700, J741
wrote:

Hi.

I have a spreadsheet with almost 5000 rows with about 15 columns of data, 2
columns of which contain sentences, phrases, or paragraphs of comments
entered by users.

Small change. The "count" function needs to be made case insensitive. So
change the code to:

=========================
Option Explicit
Sub UniqueWordList()
Dim rSrc As Range, rDest As Range, c As Range
Dim cWordList As Collection
Dim res() As Variant
Dim w() As String
Dim i As Long

Set cWordList = New Collection
Set rSrc = Range("A1:B22")
Set rDest = Range("M1")
rDest.EntireColumn.NumberFormat = "@"
For Each c In rSrc
w = Split(c.Value)
For i = 0 To UBound(w)
w(i) = StripWord(w(i))
If Not w(i) = "" Then
On Error Resume Next
cWordList.Add Item:=w(i), Key:=w(i)
On Error GoTo 0
End If
Next i
Next c

'transfer words to results array
ReDim res(1 To cWordList.Count, 0 To 1)
For i = 1 To cWordList.Count
res(i, 0) = cWordList(i)
Next i

'get counts
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
For Each c In rSrc
res(i, 1) = res(i, 1) + CountWord(c.Value, res(i, 0))
Next c
Next i

'sort alpha: d=0; sort numeric d=1
'there are various ways of sorting
BubbleSort res, 1
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
rDest.Offset(i, 0).Value = res(i, 0)
rDest.Offset(i, 1).Value = res(i, 1)
Next i

End Sub
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
Set re = Nothing
End Function
Private Function CountWord(ByVal s As String, sPat) As Long
Dim re As Object, mc As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
re.ignorecase = True
re.Pattern = "\b" & sPat & "\b"

Set mc = re.Execute(s)
CountWord = mc.Count
End Function
Private Sub BubbleSort(TempArray As Variant, d As Long) 'd is 0 based dimension
Dim temp(0, 1) As Variant
Dim i As Integer
Dim NoExchanges As Integer

' Loop until no more "exchanges" are made.
Do
NoExchanges = True

' Loop through each element in the array.
For i = LBound(TempArray) To UBound(TempArray) - 1

' If the element is less than the element
' following it, exchange the two elements.
' change "<" to "" to sort ascending
If TempArray(i, d) < TempArray(i + 1, d) Then
NoExchanges = False
temp(0, 0) = TempArray(i, 0)
temp(0, 1) = TempArray(i, 1)
TempArray(i, 0) = TempArray(i + 1, 0)
TempArray(i, 1) = TempArray(i + 1, 1)
TempArray(i + 1, 0) = temp(0, 0)
TempArray(i + 1, 1) = temp(0, 1)

End If
Next i
Loop While Not (NoExchanges)
End Sub
=================================
--ron

Thanks Ron. That worked.

Now, how can I refine this to ignore words that are smaller than 3 letters
in length? Words like 'and', 'the', not', etc.

"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote:

On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 16:41:46 -0400, Ron Rosenfeld
wrote:

On Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:36:02 -0700, J741
wrote:

Hi.

I have a spreadsheet with almost 5000 rows with about 15 columns of data, 2
columns of which contain sentences, phrases, or paragraphs of comments
entered by users.

Small change. The "count" function needs to be made case insensitive. So
change the code to:

=========================
Option Explicit
Sub UniqueWordList()
Dim rSrc As Range, rDest As Range, c As Range
Dim cWordList As Collection
Dim res() As Variant
Dim w() As String
Dim i As Long

Set cWordList = New Collection
Set rSrc = Range("A1:B22")
Set rDest = Range("M1")
rDest.EntireColumn.NumberFormat = "@"
For Each c In rSrc
w = Split(c.Value)
For i = 0 To UBound(w)
w(i) = StripWord(w(i))
If Not w(i) = "" Then
On Error Resume Next
cWordList.Add Item:=w(i), Key:=w(i)
On Error GoTo 0
End If
Next i
Next c

'transfer words to results array
ReDim res(1 To cWordList.Count, 0 To 1)
For i = 1 To cWordList.Count
res(i, 0) = cWordList(i)
Next i

'get counts
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
For Each c In rSrc
res(i, 1) = res(i, 1) + CountWord(c.Value, res(i, 0))
Next c
Next i

'sort alpha: d=0; sort numeric d=1
'there are various ways of sorting
BubbleSort res, 1
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
rDest.Offset(i, 0).Value = res(i, 0)
rDest.Offset(i, 1).Value = res(i, 1)
Next i

End Sub
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
Set re = Nothing
End Function
Private Function CountWord(ByVal s As String, sPat) As Long
Dim re As Object, mc As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
re.ignorecase = True
re.Pattern = "\b" & sPat & "\b"

Set mc = re.Execute(s)
CountWord = mc.Count
End Function
Private Sub BubbleSort(TempArray As Variant, d As Long) 'd is 0 based dimension
Dim temp(0, 1) As Variant
Dim i As Integer
Dim NoExchanges As Integer

' Loop until no more "exchanges" are made.
Do
NoExchanges = True

' Loop through each element in the array.
For i = LBound(TempArray) To UBound(TempArray) - 1

' If the element is less than the element
' following it, exchange the two elements.
' change "<" to "" to sort ascending
If TempArray(i, d) < TempArray(i + 1, d) Then
NoExchanges = False
temp(0, 0) = TempArray(i, 0)
temp(0, 1) = TempArray(i, 1)
TempArray(i, 0) = TempArray(i + 1, 0)
TempArray(i, 1) = TempArray(i + 1, 1)
TempArray(i + 1, 0) = temp(0, 0)
TempArray(i + 1, 1) = temp(0, 1)

End If
Next i
Loop While Not (NoExchanges)
End Sub
=================================
--ron

On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:56:01 -0700, J741
wrote:

Thanks Ron. That worked.

Glad to hear it. Thanks for the feedback.


Now, how can I refine this to ignore words that are smaller than 3 letters
in length? Words like 'and', 'the', not', etc.

I would do that work in the StripWord function. That's where we clean up and
can also easily test words. If a null string is returned to the calling
routine, it already ignores it.

So, for example, to eliminate words that are 3 or fewer characters in length:

======================
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
' eliminate words with length of three or less
If Len(StripWord) <= 3 Then StripWord = ""
Set re = Nothing
End Function
=======================

Other modifications as to unacceptable words, would be simple to do here, also.
--ron

Hi Ron. Thanks for that. However I have a few more questions as follows:

1. How can I get it to include e-mail addresses which contain the symbols
'@' and '.'?

2. When I tested it with some data that included mixed case words, I got
invalid results. Specifically, three cells with "Seven seven SEVEN", "SeVeN
sEvEn", and ""Seven seven SEVEN"" returned a word count of only 2 for the
word 'seven'. Why would this be?

3. For the previously mentioned invalid results, when a word such as
' was stripped of non-letter characters, it also got counted as 0
instances of the word.

4. I am trying to understand your code, and the statements 'Set re =
CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")' and 'set mc = re.Execute' are confusing to
me. Can you explain them please (or point me to another resource that
explains them)?

Thanks.

- James.



"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote:

On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:56:01 -0700, J741
wrote:

Thanks Ron. That worked.

Glad to hear it. Thanks for the feedback.


Now, how can I refine this to ignore words that are smaller than 3 letters
in length? Words like 'and', 'the', not', etc.

I would do that work in the StripWord function. That's where we clean up and
can also easily test words. If a null string is returned to the calling
routine, it already ignores it.

So, for example, to eliminate words that are 3 or fewer characters in length:

======================
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
' eliminate words with length of three or less
If Len(StripWord) <= 3 Then StripWord = ""
Set re = Nothing
End Function
=======================

Other modifications as to unacceptable words, would be simple to do here, also.
--ron

O.K. I figured out the 'seven' issue. I resolved it by using an LCase
statement in the 'get counts section of the UniqueWordList() routine as
follows:

res(i, 1) = res(i, 1) + CountWord(LCase(c.Value), res(i, 0))

I also changed the StripWords functions to only return LCased text (to match
the counting).


There's still the other 2 questions though...


"J741" wrote:

Hi Ron. Thanks for that. However I have a few more questions as follows:

1. How can I get it to include e-mail addresses which contain the symbols
'@' and '.'?

2. When I tested it with some data that included mixed case words, I got
invalid results. Specifically, three cells with "Seven seven SEVEN", "SeVeN
sEvEn", and ""Seven seven SEVEN"" returned a word count of only 2 for the
word 'seven'. Why would this be?

3. For the previously mentioned invalid results, when a word such as
' was stripped of non-letter characters, it also got counted as 0
instances of the word.

4. I am trying to understand your code, and the statements 'Set re =
CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")' and 'set mc = re.Execute' are confusing to
me. Can you explain them please (or point me to another resource that
explains them)?

Thanks.

- James.



"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote:

On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:56:01 -0700, J741
wrote:

Thanks Ron. That worked.

Glad to hear it. Thanks for the feedback.


Now, how can I refine this to ignore words that are smaller than 3 letters
in length? Words like 'and', 'the', not', etc.

I would do that work in the StripWord function. That's where we clean up and
can also easily test words. If a null string is returned to the calling
routine, it already ignores it.

So, for example, to eliminate words that are 3 or fewer characters in length:

======================
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
' eliminate words with length of three or less
If Len(StripWord) <= 3 Then StripWord = ""
Set re = Nothing
End Function
=======================

Other modifications as to unacceptable words, would be simple to do here, also.
--ron

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 15:13:00 -0700, J741
wrote:

O.K. I figured out the 'seven' issue. I resolved it by using an LCase
statement in the 'get counts section of the UniqueWordList() routine as
follows:

res(i, 1) = res(i, 1) + CountWord(LCase(c.Value), res(i, 0))

I also changed the StripWords functions to only return LCased text (to match
the counting).

Neither of those steps should have been necessary. Please see my response to
your previous post.
--ron

On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:22:01 -0700, J741
wrote:

Hi Ron. Thanks for that. However I have a few more questions as follows:

1. How can I get it to include e-mail addresses which contain the symbols
'@' and '.'?

That depends. It is simple to just add the '@' and '.' to the list of valid
characters in stripword. But that would cause problems when those characters
are not part of a valid email address. At present, StripWord strips out what
you originally stated would be invalid characters. However, to include email
addresses, requires a different approach including validating words and email
addresses. Before I get into that, are there any other requirements that you
have yet to specify?

Below is the modified routine. The major modification is in StripWord which
has been modified to recognize many (but not all) valid email addresses; as
well as any words that contain at least 4 characters. The characters in these
words need to be letters, digits or hyphens. (The email address is made a
valid exception to that rule).

There are some cosmetic modifications in the major routine also. One cosmetic
modification I did not include was to have all the output be lower case. But I
have an annotation for where that can be done.


2. When I tested it with some data that included mixed case words, I got
invalid results. Specifically, three cells with "Seven seven SEVEN", "SeVeN
sEvEn", and ""Seven seven SEVEN"" returned a word count of only 2 for the
word 'seven'. Why would this be?

As written, the code SHOULD be case-insensitive. Are you using the appropriate
code? The first I presented had to be changed to make it case insensitive.

When I put those three phrases in A1:A3, and run the code, I get a result of:

Seven 8

Another reason for your problem is that rSrc is not properly specified so that
the routine is not checking the cells where you have those strings.


3. For the previously mentioned invalid results, when a word such as
' was stripped of non-letter characters, it also got counted as 0
instances of the word.

That is because there is no word = "meherecom". In my first response to you, I
wrote "words are defined as strings containing only letters, digits, slash or a
hyphen. This is done in order to remove punctuation. But it will also remove
other substrings that might include other characters. If this will be an issue,
changes can be easily made."

But this is the first you have indicated that your definition of "word" does
not match the one I stated I was using. So unexpected results are ...
"expected" :-)



4. I am trying to understand your code, and the statements 'Set re =
CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")' and 'set mc = re.Execute' are confusing to
me. Can you explain them please (or point me to another resource that
explains them)?

This is part of the VBScript Regular Expression Engine, which is similar to
that specified in the ECMA262 specification.

Here are some bookmarks (most of which should still be good):

Regular Expressions
http://www.regular-expressions.info/reference.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default...02&Product=vbb
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6wzad2b2.aspx
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms974619.aspx
http://www.regex-guru.info/




Thanks.

- James.




================================================
Option Explicit
Sub UniqueWordList()
Dim rSrc As Range, rDest As Range, c As Range
Dim cWordList As Collection
Dim res() As Variant
Dim w() As String
Dim i As Long

Set cWordList = New Collection
Set rSrc = Range("A1:B50")
Set rDest = Range("M1")
rDest.EntireColumn.NumberFormat = "@"
For Each c In rSrc
w = Split(c.Value)
For i = 0 To UBound(w)
w(i) = StripWord(w(i))
If Not w(i) = "" Then
On Error Resume Next
cWordList.Add Item:=w(i), Key:=w(i)
On Error GoTo 0
End If
Next i
Next c

'transfer words to results array
ReDim res(1 To cWordList.Count, 0 To 1)
For i = 1 To cWordList.Count
res(i, 0) = cWordList(i)
Next i

'get counts
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
For Each c In rSrc
res(i, 1) = res(i, 1) + CountWord(c.Value, res(i, 0))
Next c
Next i

'sort alpha: d=0; sort numeric d=1
'there are various ways of sorting
BubbleSort res, 1

rDest.CurrentRegion.Clear
For i = LBound(res) To UBound(res)
rDest.Offset(i, 0).NumberFormat = "@"
rDest.Offset(i, 0).Value = res(i, 0)
'For just lowercase output, use:
'rDest.Offset(i, 0).Value = LCase(res(i, 0))
rDest.Offset(i, 1).Value = res(i, 1)
Next i
End Sub

Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object, mc As Object, m As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.IgnoreCase = True
re.Global = True
re.Pattern = "[a-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?^_`{|}~-]+(?:\.[a-z0-9!#$%&'*+/=?" _
& "^_`{|}~-]+)*@(?:[a-z0-9](?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?\.)+[a-z0-9]" _
& "(?:[a-z0-9-]*[a-z0-9])?|[-\w]{4,}"
If re.test(s) = True Then
Set mc = re.Execute(s)
StripWord = mc(0).Value
End If
Set re = Nothing
End Function

Private Function CountWord(ByVal s As String, sPat) As Long
Dim re As Object, mc As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
re.IgnoreCase = True
re.Pattern = "\b" & sPat & "\b"

Set mc = re.Execute(s)
CountWord = mc.Count
End Function

Private Sub BubbleSort(TempArray As Variant, d As Long) 'd is 0 based dimension
Dim temp(0, 1) As Variant
Dim i As Integer
Dim NoExchanges As Integer

' Loop until no more "exchanges" are made.
Do
NoExchanges = True

' Loop through each element in the array.
For i = LBound(TempArray) To UBound(TempArray) - 1

' If the element is less than the element
' following it, exchange the two elements.
' change "<" to "" to sort ascending
If TempArray(i, d) < TempArray(i + 1, d) Then
NoExchanges = False
temp(0, 0) = TempArray(i, 0)
temp(0, 1) = TempArray(i, 1)
TempArray(i, 0) = TempArray(i + 1, 0)
TempArray(i, 1) = TempArray(i + 1, 1)
TempArray(i + 1, 0) = temp(0, 0)
TempArray(i + 1, 1) = temp(0, 1)

End If
Next i
Loop While Not (NoExchanges)
End Sub
==========================================
--ron

Hi Ron.

I found a problem with the code you provided. Sometimes I get a "Run-time
error '13': Type Mismatch". If I hit 'debug', it shows me the line:
w = Split(c.Value)

When I add a watch for c, this is what I see:
Value: Error 2029 Type: Range/Range

When I add a watch for c.value, this is what I see:
Value: Error 2029 Type: Variant/Error

I traced this to a cell which contains the following text:
#NAME?

However, after removing the data from that cell and trying again, I now get
"Run-time error '5020': Application-defined or object-defined error".

This error occurs at the following line in the 'CountWord' function:
Set mc = re.Execute(s)


I'm not having much fun with this code, as I keep running into error that I
don't fully understand.


- James.



"Ron Rosenfeld" wrote:

On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:56:01 -0700, J741
wrote:

Thanks Ron. That worked.

Glad to hear it. Thanks for the feedback.


Now, how can I refine this to ignore words that are smaller than 3 letters
in length? Words like 'and', 'the', not', etc.

I would do that work in the StripWord function. That's where we clean up and
can also easily test words. If a null string is returned to the calling
routine, it already ignores it.

So, for example, to eliminate words that are 3 or fewer characters in length:

======================
Private Function StripWord(s As String) As String
Dim re As Object
Set re = CreateObject("vbscript.regexp")
re.Global = True
'allow only letters, digits, slashes and hyphens
re.Pattern = "[^-/A-Za-z0-9]"
StripWord = re.Replace(s, "")
' eliminate words with length of three or less
If Len(StripWord) <= 3 Then StripWord = ""
Set re = Nothing
End Function
=======================

Other modifications as to unacceptable words, would be simple to do here, also.
--ron

On Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:33:01 -0700, J741
wrote:

I traced this to a cell which contains the following text:
#NAME?

You really need to better define what we are dealing with.

In your original post, you indicated:

"... contain sentences, phrases, or paragraphs of comments
entered by users."

#NAME? errors are the result of someone trying to enter a FORMULA. I did not
include FORMULA's in the class of "sentences, phrases, or paragraphs of
comments".

Now a problem is that you have not defined what you want to do in the event
your user enters something that evaluates to a formula?

Are formulas legitimate entries for a user, or are they always going to be a
mistake?

If they are legitimate entries, then you probably want to flag those that
result in errors but test the results of legitimate formulas.

If they are NEVER going to be legitimate entries, then you can test the formula
text (and not the formula result) if there is a formula in the cell, regardless
of whether it returns an error value or not.

If your users will NEVER be entering formulas, then each entry that evaluates
to a formula is really a comment that happens to begin with an equal sign.

That being the case, one solution is to test each cell to see if it is a
formula, and, if so, evaluate the formula text. This approach would ignore the
"equal" sign since it is only one character in length (and you want legitimate
words to be more than three characters in length). However, since, under the
assumption that "=" represents a token for the word "equal" or "equals", maybe
we should substitute that word for the token.

Having done this, you may still miss some entries as formulas that don't
evaluate to errors may have the word-defining spaces removed by Excel's formula
parser.

But if formulas are legitimate user-entries, then you need to use a different
approach.

I'm not having much fun with this code, as I keep running into error that I
don't fully understand.

Feel free to try different code in order to have fun.

Or, if you want to work with this code, post back regarding my questions about
user-entered formulas in these cells, and we can devise code to handle the
problem.
--ron