The Excel FIND function returns the position (as a number) of one text string inside another. When the text is not found, FIND returns a #VALUE error.
- Purpose: Get the location of text in a string
- Return value: A number representing the location of find_text.
Syntax
=FIND (find_text, within_text, [start_num])
Arguments
- find_text - The text to find.
- within_text - The text to search within.
- start_num - [optional] The starting position in the text to search. Optional, defaults to 1.
Example:
To return the position of the letter “A” in the word “Apple”:
=FIND("A","Apple") // returns 1
Note hardcoded text values must be enclosed in double quotes (“”). To find the position of the lowercase “the”:
=FIND("the","The cat in the hat") // returns 12