How do I search for a text string in a column in Excel?
Find cells that contain text
- Select the range of cells that you want to search.
- On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click Find & Select, and then click Find.
- In the Find what box, enter the text—or numbers—that you need to find.
How do I search for a string in Excel?
The FIND function in Excel is used to return the position of a specific character or substring within a text string. The first 2 arguments are required, the last one is optional. Find_text – the character or substring you want to find. Within_text – the text string to be searched within.

How do you search for a list of words in a cell in Excel?
In English our formula reads:
- SEARCH cell A2 to see if it contains any words listed in cells H1:H3 (i.e. the named range ‘list’) and return the number of the character in cell A2 where the word starts.
- i.e. in cell A2 the ‘F’ in the word ‘Finance’ starts in position 20.
How do you search an element in a column Excel?
You can use the MATCH() function to check if the values in column A also exist in column B. MATCH() returns the position of a cell in a row or column. The syntax for MATCH() is =MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_array, [match_type]) . Using MATCH, you can look up a value both horizontally and vertically.
How do you check in Excel if a cell contains a string?

Cell contains specific text
- Generic formula. =ISNUMBER(SEARCH(substring,text))
- To check if a cell contains specific text, you can use the SEARCH function together with the ISNUMBER function.
- The SEARCH function returns the position of the search string when found, and the #VALUE!
- How to use formula criteria (50 examples)
How do you check if a cell contains a string in Excel?
How do I find a value in a column?
The VLOOKUP function searches a value in the first column of a table or data range based on match type and returns its related value from that row in a specified column based on column_index_number. IF the value is found in that column then it returns the value as a result.