IF Formula without exact match

[meganisagee]

HI everyone,

I am working on a sheet that highlights categories of professional development activities when an option is selected from a drop down. Column B is set up as the place to search for keywords, but I've found that if I label an activity with more than one category, the highlighting stops. For example, the first activity should be highlighted when "Continuing Education" is selected, as well as when "Leadership Development" is selected. It worked when it was just labeled with Continuing Education, but once I added the second category of "Leadership Development," (so B10 would read "Continuing Education, Leadership Development") it broke. I've been playing around with the wild card symbol *, but I can't figure it out. Forgive my ignorance.

Here is the sheet I'm working on. Thanks!

 

[ExceLoki]

try something like this, might need to edit a little for your specific needs

Book1
	B	C	D	E
5			Leadership Development
6
7
8
9		type	detail	target
10	Continuing Education, Leadership Development	college	nova
Sheet2

Cells with Conditional Formatting
Cell	Condition		Cell Format	Stop If True
B10:E10	Expression	=IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH($D$5, $B$10)),TRUE,FALSE)	text	NO

Cells with Data Validation
Cell	Allow	Criteria
D5	List	Continuing Education, Leadership Development

 

[Scott Huish]

You don't need an IF for ISNUMBER, it returns TRUE/FALSE on its own.

=ISNUMBER(SEARCH($D$5, $B$10)

 

[meganisagee]

Thank you both very much! It worked

 

[ExceLoki]

no worries, happy to help