BeginnerText Functions
Find where a word starts with SEARCH
Locate a keyword inside a longer description without worrying about capitals.
SEARCH
5 min15 points
SEARCH
Like FIND, but ignores case and accepts wildcards.
Syntax
SEARCH(find_text, within_text, [start_num])
Text Functions.
Practise SEARCH1 interactive exercise, free, no account needed
A worked example
=SEARCH("bell",A2)
Returns 8
Finds Bell at position 8 regardless of casing, where FIND would have errored.
Where it goes wrong
Like FIND, it errors rather than returning 0 when there is no match.
What the exercises catch
Each of these is a wrong turn the practice exercises recognise and name. They are the misconceptions, not the answers.
- FIND matches capitals exactly, so a lowercase search misses Pallet and PALLET and returns an error on most of these rows. You need the case-insensitive one.Find where a word starts with SEARCH
- The word starts in a different place on every row, so a typed number is only right here. Let the formula find it.Find where a word starts with SEARCH
Practise SEARCH
Knowing what a function does and being able to write it from memory are different skills. These close the gap.
All SEARCH practice exercises →