Find the nth occurrence of a character in Excel – 3 quick ways

Finding the nth occurrence of a specific character within a text string in Excel can be particularly useful in data analysis, where you might need to parse strings or extract information based on certain delimiters or patterns. For instance, let's find the 2nd or 3rd occurrence of the character "-" in a text string. I'll demonstrate straightforward techniques to efficiently accomplish this task.

Find nth occurrence of a character in text string with formula
Find nth occurrence of a character in text string with Kutools for Excel
Find nth occurrence of a character in text stringl with User Defined Function

Find nth occurrence of a character in text string with formula

You can craft a formula to find the nth occurrence of a character. Please do as this:

1. Enter or copy the following formula into a cell where you want to get the result:

=FIND(CHAR(1),SUBSTITUTE(A2,"-",CHAR(1),2))

2. Then, drag the formula fill down to fill the formula to other cells, and the 2nd position of the character – are displayed at once, see screenshot:

Find nth occurrence of a character in text string with Kutools for Excel

If you're not a fan of using formula or VBA, you might consider a convenient alternative – Kutools for Excel. Within its Formula groups, you'll find a useful utility – Find where the character appears Nth in a string which quickly identifies and returns the nth position of any character in a cell.

After installing Kutools for Excel, click Kutools > Formula Helper > Formula Helper to open the Formula Helper dialog box. Click a cell where you want to put the result. Then, do as follows:

1. Select Lookup from the drop-down list of Formula Type section;
2. Choose Find where the character appears Nth in a string in Choose a formula section;
3. Select the cell which contains the string you use, then type the specified character and nth occurrence in to the textboxes in the Arguments input section;
4. At last, click OK button to get the result.
   

Find nth occurrence of a character in text stringl with User Defined Function

In this section, we'll explore how to create and use a UDF to find the nth occurrence of a character in Excel, providing a step-by-step guide to help you optimize your data handling.

1. Hold down the ALT + F11 keys, and it opens the Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window.
2. Click Insert > Module, and paste the following macro in the Module Window.

    Function FindN(sFindWhat As String, _
   sInputString As String, N As Integer) As Integer
   'Updateby Extendoffice
   Dim J As Integer
   Application.Volatile
   FindN = 0
   For J = 1 To N
   FindN = InStr(FindN + 1, sInputString, sFindWhat)
   If FindN = 0 Then Exit For
   Next
   End Function

3. Then, close the vba window. Go back to the worksheet, enter the following formula into a cell, and then drag the fill handle down to fill the formula to other cells, see screenshot:

   =FindN("-",A2,3)

   

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