geekylawyer
New Member
- Joined
- May 23, 2013
- Messages
- 3
I have a spreadsheet that has relatively clean data, but at the end of every row is a long notes fields (often filled with several paragraphs of text). I'm trying to search inside each one of those notes to see if it contains certain boilerplate language / legalese / key words.
If I was just looking for one word, it would be easy -- I would write =IFERROR(IF(SEARCH("keyword",E2)>0,"Yes",""),""). That way, if the keyword is present, it returns "Yes", and if it's not present, it returns a blank.
What I want to do, though, if look for a long list of keywords simultaneously, and if ANY of those keywords are present, have it return a "Yes".
So I could do something like =IFERROR(IF(or(SEARCH("keyword1",E2)>0,SEARCH("keyword2",E2)>0,SEARCH("keyword3",E2)>0,SEARCH("keyword4",E2)>0)),"Yes",""),""), but that seems horribly inefficient. Especially since my list of keywords is likely to change over time.
So what I want it to do is search each cell by simultaneous reference to an ever-changing table of keywords (call it [KeywordTable]). And I can't figure out how to do that. The search function is resisting all of my efforts to put multiple search values / a range of words inside of it.
To reiterate: the goal is to look at one cell filled with text, ask "does the text in that cell contain any of the keywords contained in [KeywordTable]", and if the answer is "Yes" return yes, and if the answer is no return no (or blanks). That's all.
If I was just looking for one word, it would be easy -- I would write =IFERROR(IF(SEARCH("keyword",E2)>0,"Yes",""),""). That way, if the keyword is present, it returns "Yes", and if it's not present, it returns a blank.
What I want to do, though, if look for a long list of keywords simultaneously, and if ANY of those keywords are present, have it return a "Yes".
So I could do something like =IFERROR(IF(or(SEARCH("keyword1",E2)>0,SEARCH("keyword2",E2)>0,SEARCH("keyword3",E2)>0,SEARCH("keyword4",E2)>0)),"Yes",""),""), but that seems horribly inefficient. Especially since my list of keywords is likely to change over time.
So what I want it to do is search each cell by simultaneous reference to an ever-changing table of keywords (call it [KeywordTable]). And I can't figure out how to do that. The search function is resisting all of my efforts to put multiple search values / a range of words inside of it.
To reiterate: the goal is to look at one cell filled with text, ask "does the text in that cell contain any of the keywords contained in [KeywordTable]", and if the answer is "Yes" return yes, and if the answer is no return no (or blanks). That's all.