SEARCH function

Category: Text functions

What does this function do?

Returns the starting position of one string within another. Unlike FIND (), it does not distinguish between upper case and lower case.

Syntax:

SEARCH( search_text, within_text, [start_num] )

• search_text (required): The character or text string that you wish to search for
• within_text (required): The text string that is to be searched
• [start_num] (optional): An optional argument that specifies the position of the character from which the search should begin. If omitted, this takes on the default value of 1 (i.e. begin the search at the start of the within_text string)

Examples:

=SEARCH("c", "The wizard of Excel", 1) = 17
If A1 = "The  wizard of Excel"
=SEARCH("c", A1, 1) = 17

Difference between SEARCH and FIND::

The only difference between functions and SEARCH and FIND is that the FIND function is sensitive to case.
=SEARCH("Excel", "The wizard of Excel", 1) = 15
= FIND("Excel", "The wizard of Excel, 1) = 15
however:
= SEARCH("excel", "The wizard of Excel", 1) = 15
= FIND("excel", "The wizard of Excel", 1) = # VALUE!