Excel Formula: Check if a cell contains a specific text
Here the tutorial provides some formulas to check if a cell contains a specific text and return TRUE and FALSE as below screenshot shown, and explains the arguments and how the formulas works.
Formula 1 Check if a cell contains a specific text (not case sensitive)
Generic formula:
| =ISNUMBER(SEARCH(substring,text)) |
Arguments
| Substring: the specific text you want to search in the cell. |
| Text: the cell or text string you want to check if contains a specific text (the argument substring) |
Return value:
This formula returns a logical value. If the cell contains the substring, the formula returns TRUE, or it returns FALSE.
How this formula work
Here you want to check if cell B3 contains the text in C3, use below formula
| =ISNUMBER(SEARCH(C3,B3)) |
Press Enter key to get the checking result.
Explanation
SEARCH function: the SEARCH function returns the position of first character of the find_text in the within_text, if it does not find the find_text, it will return #VALUE! error value. Here SEARCH(C3,B3) will find the position of text in cell C3 within cell B3, it returns 22.
ISNUMBER function: the ISNUMBER function will check if the value in cell is numeric value and return a logical value. Returning TRUE indicates the cell contains a numeric value, or return FALSE. Here ISNUMBER(SEARCH(C3,B3)) will check if the result of SEARCH function is a numeric value.
Formula 2 Check if cell contains a specific text (case sensitive)
Generic formula:
| =ISNUMBER(FIND(substring,text)) |
Arguments
| Substring: the specific text you want to search in the cell. |
| Text: the cell or text string you want to check if contains a specific text (the argument substring). |
Return value:
This formula returns a logical value. If the cell contains the substring, the formula returns TRUE, or it returns FALSE.
How this formula work
Here you want to check if cell B4 contains the text in C4, use below formula
| =ISNUMBER(FIND(C4,B4)) |
Press Enter key to check.
Explanation
FIND function: the FIND function gets the location of the first character of the find_text in the within_text, if it does not find the find_text, it will return #VALUE! error value, and it is case sensitive. Here FIND(C4,B4) will find the position of text in cell C4 within cell B4, and it returns #VALUE! error value..
ISNUMBER function: the ISNUMBER function will check if the value in cell is a numeric value and return a logical value. Returning TRUE indicates the cell contains a numeric value, or return FALSE. Here ISNUMBER(FIND(C4,B4)) will check if the result of FIND function is numeric value.
Sample File
Click to download sample fileRelative Formulas
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