[Tannerx007]

Hey guys and gals,

Here's what I'm trying to do: I have an Excel spread sheet with 3 columns and many rows depending on the data. I need to be able to search the data in column C for about 10 or so words and highlight them. The problem is, the words in column C have been exported by a program so each word ends with a comma then the next word begins with no space so it's difficult to search. Example, Text1,Text2,Text3 and so on. Is there a macro or software that I can use that will search all the rows for column C and highlight the group of words I choose? I'm using Excel 2007.

Thanks for your help!

[etaf]

are you searching for text1 in the example or for all words text1 and text2 and text3

also what version of excel

you can do with a large nested if for 10 words - but not on 2003 version or below

problem is is looking for those characters so
if you had

doc,doctor
a search for doc - would also pick up doctor

ie Text10 would be found if you search for text1

in a conditional format in cell C4 I put this

=IF(OR(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text1",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text2",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text3",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text4",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text5",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text6",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text7",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text8",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text9",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text10",C4)),ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text11",C4))),TRUE,FALSE)

basically an IF statement to test for true or flase
a search statement to find the text
and isnumber to stop errors

as i say this will return a true for text19
as it can find the string text1

[Tannerx007]

Well the Text1,Text2,Text3 etc. are actually people's names. I have a group of about 6 or 7 people that I need to find throughout all these columns so the names that I need to find are always the same but the total amount of names in Column C can vary. So to answer your question, I will need to extract certain names. For example, I want to search all the rows in column C and have only say Text1 and Text3 highlighted so that it would look like this: Text1,Text2,Text3 (Where the underline would be the highlighted part.) Does that make sense? I'm using Excel 2007.

[etaf]

sounds like amacro is needed
any reason you cant expand the text across columns so each cell has only one name

text to columns and use the , as the deliminator would then move all that information, so that one name would move into a cell of its own
then apply the conditional format

[Tannerx007]

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that function. I'll try it tomorrow and see how it goes. Thanks for your help!

[etaf]

its should be under data > text to column

Select the range you have
Go to Data | Text To Columns.
Excel 2007 >Data tab >Text To Columns command in the Data Tools group.
click Delimited
Click Next
select the , check box and clear the Tab check box

http://techtips-rs.blogspot.co.uk/20...-2007-tip.html