The FIND function is a text function which allows you to search for a case specific string of text within a larger string and return its position within the string.

This is the format of the FIND function:

=FIND(TEXT TO SEARCH FOR, STRING TO SEARCH IN, CHARACTER START NUMBER)

Here is an example of the FIND function:

=FIND(“start”,”Excellency is a great place to start learning!”) = 32 

This function is valuable when needing to location sub-strings of text within a cell which need to be extracted without a consistent delimiter. Usually paired with functions like MID, the FIND function becomes a powerful tool.

An example of a functional implementation of this would be needing to extract store numbers and manager information from a string of text, where no delimiter is in place, as is often the case. You know each store number is preceded by the string “S.” which should not exist in the text otherwise. Paired with the MID function you will be able to extract only the store number from the rows of text.

ex: The text is in column A and begins on row 2

=FIND(“S.”, A2) = 24