Hi DChambers,
It is quite easy to do the string search from another program if that program supports automation. All the Office applications (Word, Access, Project, PowerPoints, etc.) do support automation, and almost all other major business applications do as well, and so do virtually all the development languages--in case you wrote this program yourself. I recommend you look at the topic "Understanding Automation" in the VBA helps. The cell location would not need to be passed in the clipboard but could be returned directly to the calling program via a variable assignment. If you program supports automation, let us know what program or application it is and where the search string comes from and we could possibly provide some code.
Regarding opening Excel each time, your code will need to open it at least once and then leave it open for subsequent searches.
All this assumes the Excel file is an Excel binary file, e.g., .xls, .xlw. If it is a .csv or .txt (i.e., text) file then it is possible to read the file, do the search and identify the cell location without having to open the file in Excel.
Damon
