Excel search using or

SEARCH, SEARCHB functions

This article describes the formula syntax and usage of the SEARCH and SEARCHB functions in Microsoft Excel.

Description

The SEARCH and SEARCHB functions locate one text string within a second text string, and return the number of the starting position of the first text string from the first character of the second text string. For example, to find the position of the letter «n» in the word «printer», you can use the following function:

This function returns 4 because «n» is the fourth character in the word «printer.»

You can also search for words within other words. For example, the function

returns 5, because the word «base» begins at the fifth character of the word «database». You can use the SEARCH and SEARCHB functions to determine the location of a character or text string within another text string, and then use the MID and MIDB functions to return the text, or use the REPLACE and REPLACEB functions to change the text. These functions are demonstrated in Example 1 in this article.

These functions may not be available in all languages.

SEARCHB counts 2 bytes per character only when a DBCS language is set as the default language. Otherwise SEARCHB behaves the same as SEARCH, counting 1 byte per character.

The languages that support DBCS include Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), and Korean.

Syntax

The SEARCH and SEARCHB functions have the following arguments:

find_text Required. The text that you want to find.

within_text Required. The text in which you want to search for the value of the find_text argument.

start_num Optional. The character number in the within_text argument at which you want to start searching.

The SEARCH and SEARCHB functions are not case sensitive. If you want to do a case sensitive search, you can use FIND and FINDB.

You can use the wildcard characters — the question mark ( ?) and asterisk ( *) — in the find_text argument. A question mark matches any single character; an asterisk matches any sequence of characters. If you want to find an actual question mark or asterisk, type a tilde (

) before the character.

If the value of find_text is not found, the #VALUE! error value is returned.

If the start_num argument is omitted, it is assumed to be 1.

If start_num is not greater than 0 (zero) or is greater than the length of the within_text argument, the #VALUE! error value is returned.

Use start_num to skip a specified number of characters. Using the SEARCH function as an example, suppose you are working with the text string «AYF0093.YoungMensApparel». To find the position of the first «Y» in the descriptive part of the text string, set start_num equal to 8 so that the serial number portion of the text (in this case, «AYF0093») is not searched. The SEARCH function starts the search operation at the eighth character position, finds the character that is specified in the find_text argument at the next position, and returns the number 9. The SEARCH function always returns the number of characters from the start of the within_text argument, counting the characters you skip if the start_num argument is greater than 1.

Examples

Copy the example data in the following table, and paste it in cell A1 of a new Excel worksheet. For formulas to show results, select them, press F2, and then press Enter. If you need to, you can adjust the column widths to see all the data.

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Use AND and OR to test a combination of conditions

When you need to find data that meets more than one condition, such as units sold between April and January, or units sold by Nancy, you can use the AND and OR functions together. Here’s an example:

This formula nests the AND function inside the OR function to search for units sold between April 1, 2011 and January 1, 2012, or any units sold by Nancy. You can see it returns True for units sold by Nancy, and also for units sold by Tim and Ed during the dates specified in the formula.

Here’s the formula in a form you can copy and paste. If you want to play with it in a sample workbook, see the end of this article.

Use AND and OR with IF

You can also use AND and OR with the IF function.

In this example, people don’t earn bonuses until they sell at least $125,000 worth of goods, unless they work in the southern region where the market is smaller. In that case, they qualify for a bonus after $100,000 in sales.

Let’s look a bit deeper. The IF function requires three pieces of data (arguments) to run properly. The first is a logical test, the second is the value you want to see if the test returns True, and the third is the value you want to see if the test returns False. In this example, the OR function and everything nested in it provides the logical test. You can read it as: Look for values greater than or equal to 125,000, unless the value in column C is «South», then look for a value greater than 100,000, and every time both conditions are true, multiply the value by 0.12, the commission amount. Otherwise, display the words «No bonus.»

Sample data

If you want to work with the examples in this article, copy the following table into cell A1 in your own spreadsheet. Be sure to select the whole table, including the heading row.

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OR Function Examples IF OR Statements – Excel & Google Sheets

Download the example workbook

This tutorial demonstrates how to use the OR Function in Excel and Google Sheets to test if one or more criteria is true.

What is the OR Function?

The OR Function tests if one or more conditions are TRUE. It can evaluate up to 255 expressions.

How to Use the OR Function

Use the Excel OR Function like this:

If the text in column C is equal to “Pop” or “Rock”, OR will return TRUE. Anything else will return FALSE.

Compare Text

Note that text comparisons are not case-sensitive. So the following formula would produce the same results as above:

Also, OR does not support wildcards. So this formula returns FALSE:

This is because OR will literally compare the text string “P*” and “R*” with the value in C3.

Compare Numbers

You have a range of comparison operators at your disposal when comparing numbers. These are:

For example, if you had a list of 1980s movies and wanted to find ones from 1983 and earlier, or 1987 and later, you could use this formula:

If one of the expressions in OR is a number by itself without a comparison operator, such as =OR(1983), OR will return TRUE for that value, except if the number is zero, which evaluates to FALSE.

Using OR with Other Logical Operators

You can combine OR with any of Excel’s other logical operators, such as AND, NOT, and XOR.

Here’s how you might combine it with AND. Imagine we have a table with data on some movies. We want to find movies released after 1985 that were directed by either Steven Spielberg or Tim Burton. We could use this formula:

When you combine logical operators in this way, Excel works from the inside-out. So it will evaluate the OR statement here first, since that’s nested within the AND.

Using OR with IF

OR is most commonly used as part of a logical test in an IF statement.

Use it like this:

Imagine we’re running some new promotions. To help us break into the California market, we’re offering a 5% discount in that state. We’re also offering 5% off any order over $300, to encourage our customers to make bigger orders.

The IF statement evaluates our OR Function first. If returns TRUE, IF will return D3*0.05, which give us the 5% discount value. If not, it returns 0: the order didn’t meet our criteria, so we don’t apply the discount.

OR in Google Sheets

The OR Function works exactly the same in Google Sheets as in Excel:

OR Examples in VBA

You can also use the OR function in VBA. Type:

For the function arguments, you can either enter them directly into the function, or define variables to use instead.

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OR function

Use the OR function, one of the logical functions, to determine if any conditions in a test are TRUE.

Example

The OR function returns TRUE if any of its arguments evaluate to TRUE, and returns FALSE if all of its arguments evaluate to FALSE.

One common use for the OR function is to expand the usefulness of other functions that perform logical tests. For example, the IF function performs a logical test and then returns one value if the test evaluates to TRUE and another value if the test evaluates to FALSE. By using the OR function as the logical_test argument of the IF function, you can test many different conditions instead of just one.

The OR function syntax has the following arguments:

Required. The first condition that you want to test that can evaluate to either TRUE or FALSE.

Optional. Additional conditions that you want to test that can evaluate to either TRUE or FALSE, up to a maximum of 255 conditions.

The arguments must evaluate to logical values such as TRUE or FALSE, or in arrays or references that contain logical values.

If an array or reference argument contains text or empty cells, those values are ignored.

If the specified range contains no logical values, OR returns the #VALUE! error value.

You can use an OR array formula to see if a value occurs in an array. To enter an array formula, press CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER.

Examples

Here are some general examples of using OR by itself, and in conjunction with IF.

=OR(A2>1,A2 OR less than 100, otherwise it displays FALSE.

=IF(OR(A2>1,A2 OR less than 100, otherwise it displays the message «The value is out of range».

=IF(OR(A2 50),A2,»The value is out of range»)

Displays the value in cell A2 if it’s less than 0 OR greater than 50, otherwise it displays a message.

Sales Commission Calculation

Here is a fairly common scenario where we need to calculate if sales people qualify for a commission using IF and OR.

=IF(OR(B14>=$B$4,C14>=$B$5),B14*$B$6,0) — IF Total Sales are greater than or equal to (>=) the Sales Goal, OR Accounts are greater than or equal to (>=) the Account Goal, then multiply Total Sales by the Commission %, otherwise return 0.

Need more help?

You can always ask an expert in the Excel Tech Community or get support in the Answers community.

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Using IF with AND, OR and NOT functions

The IF function allows you to make a logical comparison between a value and what you expect by testing for a condition and returning a result if that condition is True or False.

=IF(Something is True, then do something, otherwise do something else)

But what if you need to test multiple conditions, where let’s say all conditions need to be True or False ( AND), or only one condition needs to be True or False ( OR), or if you want to check if a condition does NOT meet your criteria? All 3 functions can be used on their own, but it’s much more common to see them paired with IF functions.

Use the IF function along with AND, OR and NOT to perform multiple evaluations if conditions are True or False.

IF(AND()) — IF(AND(logical1, [logical2], . ), value_if_true, [value_if_false]))

IF(OR()) — IF(OR(logical1, [logical2], . ), value_if_true, [value_if_false]))

IF(NOT()) — IF(NOT(logical1), value_if_true, [value_if_false]))

The condition you want to test.

The value that you want returned if the result of logical_test is TRUE.

The value that you want returned if the result of logical_test is FALSE.

Here are overviews of how to structure AND, OR and NOT functions individually. When you combine each one of them with an IF statement, they read like this:

AND – =IF(AND(Something is True, Something else is True), Value if True, Value if False)

OR – =IF(OR(Something is True, Something else is True), Value if True, Value if False)

NOT – =IF(NOT(Something is True), Value if True, Value if False)

Examples

Following are examples of some common nested IF(AND()), IF(OR()) and IF(NOT()) statements. The AND and OR functions can support up to 255 individual conditions, but it’s not good practice to use more than a few because complex, nested formulas can get very difficult to build, test and maintain. The NOT function only takes one condition.

Here are the formulas spelled out according to their logic:

=IF(AND(A2>0,B2 0,B4 50),TRUE,FALSE)

IF A6 (25) is NOT greater than 50, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case 25 is not greater than 50, so the formula returns TRUE.

IF A7 (“Blue”) is NOT equal to “Red”, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE.

Note that all of the examples have a closing parenthesis after their respective conditions are entered. The remaining True/False arguments are then left as part of the outer IF statement. You can also substitute Text or Numeric values for the TRUE/FALSE values to be returned in the examples.

Here are some examples of using AND, OR and NOT to evaluate dates.

Here are the formulas spelled out according to their logic:

IF A2 is greater than B2, return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. 03/12/14 is greater than 01/01/14, so the formula returns TRUE.

=IF(AND(A3>B2,A3 B2,A4 B2),TRUE,FALSE)

IF A5 is not greater than B2, then return TRUE, otherwise return FALSE. In this case, A5 is greater than B2, so the formula returns FALSE.

Using AND, OR and NOT with Conditional Formatting

You can also use AND, OR and NOT to set Conditional Formatting criteria with the formula option. When you do this you can omit the IF function and use AND, OR and NOT on their own.

From the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting > New Rule. Next, select the “ Use a formula to determine which cells to format” option, enter your formula and apply the format of your choice.

Edit Rule dialog showing the Formula method» loading=»lazy»>

Using the earlier Dates example, here is what the formulas would be.

If A2 is greater than B2, format the cell, otherwise do nothing.

=AND(A3>B2,A3 B2,A4 B2)

If A5 is NOT greater than B2, format the cell, otherwise do nothing. In this case A5 is greater than B2, so the result will return FALSE. If you were to change the formula to =NOT(B2>A5) it would return TRUE and the cell would be formatted.

Note: A common error is to enter your formula into Conditional Formatting without the equals sign (=). If you do this you’ll see that the Conditional Formatting dialog will add the equals sign and quotes to the formula — =»OR(A4>B2,A4

Need more help?

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See also

You can always ask an expert in the Excel Tech Community or get support in the Answers community.

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