Can someone explain how the search function works? I have been trying
it and I have been getting value errors?

John


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jcastellano
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The SEARCH function looks up a value or text within a string and returns
the starting point of that value. So if in A1 you had the text "How are
you?" and you used

=SEARCH("are",A1,1)

it would return the number 5 as that is the starting point of the word
"are" within the text string starting with the first character which is
defined by the "1" in the formula.

If the value is not located in the string, it returns the #VALUE!
error. To avoid seeing this error you could use something like,

=IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("are",A1,1)),"Found","")

This would return the text "Found" if the word is found and a blank if
not.

SEARCH is not case sensitive. If you need your search to be case
sensitive, use the FIND function. Maybe post what you need to
accomplish and how you are trying to use the function so someone might
be able to assist.


HTH

Steve


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SteveG
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Can you use SEARCH for numbers, or is it just for text only?


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jcastellano
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Yes. You can use it for numbers as well.

Steve


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SteveG
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I am also having an issue with the search function...when I search on an item
that is present, it does not find it...comes back with "no documents found
that match your query"

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

"jcastellano" wrote:


Can someone explain how the search function works? I have been trying
it and I have been getting value errors?

John


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jcastellano
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This sounds like the Windows Search, rather than SEARCH( ) in Excel.

Pete