FIND and SEARCH in Google Sheets - Cell-by-Cell Formula Trace

Sample Data

This data shows three text strings in column A with different letter cases. Column B contains single letters to find within the text strings.

Cell	Value
A1	Hello World
A2	hello world
A3	HELLO WORLD
B1	o
B2	O
B3	W

Formula Trace

=FIND(B1, A1)

Step 1: FIND("o", "Hello World")

Cell Reference Map

    A           B
1 | Hello World | o |
2 | hello world | O |
3 | HELLO WORLD | W |

The formula uses cell B1 ('o') as the search text and cell A1 ('Hello World') as the text to search in.

Result

    A           B       C
1 | Hello World | o | 5 |
2 | hello world | O |   |
3 | HELLO WORLD | W |   |

The formula in C1 returns 5, showing the position of 'o' in 'Hello World'.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What position does FIND("o", "Hello World") return?

A 5

B 8

C 7

D 2

Key Result

FIND(text_to_find, within_text) returns the position of text_to_find in within_text, case-sensitive; SEARCH is similar but case-insensitive.