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MS Excel: Search Function

In Excel, the Search function returns the location of a substring in a string. The search is NOT case-sensitive.

The syntax for the Search function is:

Search( text1, text2, start_position )

text1 is the substring to search for in text2.
text2 is the string to search.
start_position is the position in text2 where the search will start. The first position is 1.

If the Search function does not find a match, it will return a #VALUE! error.


Applies To:

  • Excel 2007, Excel 2003, Excel XP, Excel 2000

For example:

Let's take a look at an example:

Based on the Excel spreadsheet above:

=Search("bet", A1, 3) would return 6
=Search("BET", A1, 3) would return 6
=Search("in", A2, 6) would return #VALUE!
=Search("cel", "Excel", 1) would return 3