How to Find the Position of Text in Excel with FIND

FIND tells you where a character sits inside a cell — and it is case-sensitive. Practice on warehouse bin codes.

You will learn to

• Return the position of a character with FIND
• Use that position to extract text with LEFT
• Test for an exact-case character with ISNUMBER(FIND())

How it works

=FIND(find_text, within_text) returns the position of the first occurrence of find_text, counting from 1. =FIND("-","WH2-A07-B3") returns 4. On its own a position is not very exciting, but it is what LEFT, MID and RIGHT need when the piece you want is not a fixed length: =LEFT(A2,FIND("-",A2)-1) returns everything before the first dash.

FIND is case-sensitive and does not allow wildcards; SEARCH is its case-insensitive twin. When the text is not found FIND returns #VALUE!, so ISNUMBER(FIND(...)) is a reliable "does it contain this exact text?" test.

=FIND("-",A2)