Here is my problem...Included at the end of our product descriptions, we sometimes include "ETA's". For example, our product description (which can be up to 300 characters) could read"

1969 Corvette Bumper - Chrome Retainers included - quality rating of 10 - ETA: 07/30/12.

What I am trying to do is to remove the ETA: 07/30/12. I tried to Find and Replace all "ETA:" with about 500 @ symbols. Then, I was going to do Text to Columns and choose Fixed Width...setting the cutoff point at the longest product description in the sheet...at character # 301 for example. Doing this would push everything after the ETA way to the right. I was then going to delete the second column that it created...getting rid of most of the @ symbols, and ALL dates. Finally, I would Find and Replace all @ symbols in the first (original) column leaving me with just the description.

I know this is the long way, but I am no Excel Expert, so this is one way for me to get it done...but here's my problem....

Looking at the example above, I tried to use the formula =Substitute(A1, ("ETA"), "@@@@@@") BUT, when I use this formula, it replaces the ETA AND the ETA in the word rETAiners. I thought that if I used "" around the actual letters that I am looking for, it would ONLY replace exact matches....retainers is NOT an exact match for ETA, and no matter what I try, it will not replace ETA without replacing rETAiners also!

Just to break my problem down and figure out how to single out exact matches, I was using the FIND function and trying to FIND exact matches for "ETA:" and it kept coming up with an error saying that excel couldn't find any matches. However, if I did a FIND for just ETA, it found them all...standalone and in words.

So, if you can help me with my original plan, that would be ok, but if you could help me delete EVERYTHING after the word ETA with blanks, that would be a lot easier. Another problem is that sometimes its ETA, and other times it's ETA: So, I think I will have to run whatever process you help me come up with twice. Once for the exact match of ETA, and again with the exact match of ETA:

Thank you SOOOOOOOOO much...I have spent about 3 hours on this so far and my deadline was yesterday!

.:M