🔍 Excel FIND vs SEARCH Function Complete Guide: The Core of String Positioning

When you want to find the position of a specific character or word within a string in Excel,
you’ll need either the FIND or SEARCH function.

Although they may look the same at first glance, they have clear differences in how they handle case sensitivity and wildcards.

Here, we’ll go over their syntax, key differences, and real examples.

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📌 Quick Overview

FunctionCase SensitiveWildcardsTypical Use

FIND	Yes	No	Exact string match
SEARCH	No	Yes (*, ?)	Flexible search

 

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🧪 Syntax

✅ FIND

excel

FIND(find_text, within_text, [start_num])

• find_text: Text you want to find
• within_text: The string to search within
• start_num: (Optional) Position to start from

✅ SEARCH

excel

SEARCH(find_text, within_text, [start_num])

Same as FIND, but not case sensitive and supports wildcards.

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✅ Example Data

A column (Text)

Banana Pie

banana milk

Chocolate Banana

 

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✅ FIND Example

excel

=FIND("Banana", A2)

• A2 = banana milk
• Result: #VALUE! (case mismatch)

excel

=FIND("Banana", A3)

• A3 = Chocolate Banana
• Result: 11

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✅ SEARCH Example

excel

=SEARCH("banana", A2)

• A2 = banana milk
• Result: 1

excel

=SEARCH("b*n*", A2)

• Result: 1

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💥 Practical Use Case

Split text by slash /

A column (Data)

2024/06/25

 

excel

=LEFT(A1, FIND("/", A1)-1)

→ Result: 2024

excel

=MID(A1, FIND("/", A1)+1, 2)

→ Result: 06

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⚠️ Common Mistakes

MistakeExplanation

Case mismatch with FIND	It's case sensitive
Using wildcards with FIND	Only SEARCH supports wildcards
No error handling	Use IFERROR() or ISNUMBER()

 

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💡 Useful Functions Together

• LEFT, RIGHT, MID – extract text
• LEN() – count string length
• IFERROR() – handle errors
• ISNUMBER() – check if result is a number

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🧠 Summary Table

ItemFINDSEARCH

Case	Sensitive	Not sensitive
Wildcards	Not allowed	Allowed
Performance	Faster	More flexible