The SEARCH function looks up a value or text within a string and return
the starting point of that value. So if in A1 you had the text "How ar
you?" and you used
=SEARCH("are",A1,1)
it would return the number 5 as that is the starting point of the wor
"are" within the text string starting with the first character which i
defined by the "1" in the formula.
If the value is not located in the string, it returns the #VALUE
error. To avoid seeing this error you could use something like,
=IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("are",A1,1)),"Found","")
This would return the text "Found" if the word is found and a blank i
not.
SEARCH is not case sensitive. If you need your search to be cas
sensitive, use the FIND function. Maybe post what you need t
accomplish and how you are trying to use the function so someone migh
be able to assist.
HTH
Stev