Text string contains or includes?

[dcxkraze]

Any tips on how to search a text string for keywords?

Column A is full of paragraph descriptions. Column B needs to be an if statement that determines whether column A contains the string "XXX"

Thanks for any tips

Best,

Brandon

 

[nbrcrunch]

XXX is a singular constant or do you, as your first sentence seems to imply, have more than one criteria?

Both the FIND() and SEARCH() functions search strings.

 

[barry houdini]

If you want to find whole words only then try this in B1 copied down column

=ISNUMBER(SEARCH(" XXX "," "&A1&" "))

assumes that you have spaces between words but no punctuation

 

[dcxkraze]

Thanks

Thanks for your help. Ideally I am trying to search for multiple keywords, but I assume to get that type of flexibility I'll just have to use IFs and ORs.

One additional question: Search() yields either an integer or #VALUE. Is there any way to structure an if statement to get rid of #VALUE or replace it with something else?

Best,

Brandon

 

[barry houdini]

Re: Thanks

One additional question: Search() yields either an integer or #VALUE. Is there any way to structure an if statement to get rid of #VALUE or replace it with something else?

see my suggestion above, that will give TRUE or FALSE

 

[dcxkraze]

Great suggestion, thanks Barry.