The SEARCHTEXT function finds one text string within another and returns the position of the character at which the two text strings first match.
SEARCHTEXT is case-insensitive and allows wildcard characters (* or ?) (This differs from FINDTEXT – see FINDTEXT). If you wish to search for the characters * or ? themselves, use ~* or ~?.
find_text is the text you wish to find. If find_text is "" (empty) the position of the character at start_num is returned.
within_text is the object text.
start_num is the position of the character in within_text from which you want to begin the search. If start_num is omitted it is assumed to be 1.
The #VALUE error message is returned if SEARCHTEXT fails to find a match.
For example,
=SEARCHTEXT("br", "AbraCADaBRa", 5) returns 9
=SEARCHTEXT("r", "Robertson", 1) returns 1
=SEARCHTEXT("R*t", "Robertson", 1) returns 1
=SEARCHTEXT("", "Mr Smith", 4) returns 4
=SEARCHTEXT("~*", "XXXX*XX") returns 5
See also: