Finding a character in an Excel spreadsheet row

Excel users, despite the fact that finding the desired character seems like a fairly simple task, often do not understand how to do it. Some of them are easier, some are more difficult. Also, sometimes there are problems with finding characters such as a question mark or an asterisk due to the fact that they are used in filters. Today we will describe ways to get symbols of various types.

How to find text characters (letters and numbers) in a cell

To begin with, let’s try to perform the simplest task: determine the presence of text characters in the cells and find the one you need. To do this, you need to use the !SEMTools add-on, with which you can search for characters of different types. The sequence of actions is as follows:

1. Select the range that is the original and copy it to the next column.
2. Then select the second range.
3. Open the “!SEMTools” tab. There, on the very left side of the toolbar, there will be a “Detect” tab.
4. After that, open the “Symbols” menu.
5. Then an additional menu will appear, in which you need to find the item “Letters-numbers” and click on it.

In this animation, you can see exactly how to proceed correctly in order to find text characters in a cell. With this add-in function, the user can determine if there are non-printable characters in other cells.

How to find numbers in a table cell

Sometimes you need to identify cells that have numbers, but they are with text. When there are a lot of such cells, it can be quite difficult to identify them. Before you implement this task, you need to define some basic terms. Our main concept is “discover”. This means to check if a certain type of character is in a string. If yes, it returns TRUE, if not, FALSE. If, in addition to searching for numbers in a cell, the user wants to perform other actions, then you can use the further sections of this instruction.

The second concept that needs to be disassembled is numbers. This is an integral term that means as many as 10 characters that correspond to numbers from 0 to 9. Accordingly, in order to check for the presence of numbers, the user needs to check the range 10 times. This can be done using the function IFbut this approach is very time consuming.

To solve this problem, you can use a special formula that will perform all the checks in one go: =COUNT(SEARCH({1:2:3:4:5:6:7:8:9:0};A1))>0 . This function has the same syntax as the one that searches for Cyrillic characters in the text.

You can also use an add-in that already has a built-in macro in order to perform this task. In this case, it is enough just to use the special !SEMTools tab, which must be applied on an additional column, which is a complete copy of the one that is the original one.

Therefore, the set of steps to be taken is fully consistent with the previous paragraph. You must first select the original range, copy it, and then select the appeared column and apply a macro to it according to the sequence of steps given in this animation.

Suppose we need to find only certain numbers from all given. How can this be done? First, let’s show you how to do it with !SEMTools. Using the tool is simple. It is enough to write down all the necessary numbers in brackets, and then press the OK button to confirm. Using the same method, you can find the Latin alphabet or find capital letters in a line of text.

You can also use the formula to find the required numbers in a range of cells. To do this, you need to use a combination of functions CHECK и SEARCH. With its help, you can detect not only individual numbers, but also whole numerical sequences: =СЧЁТ(ПОИСК({01:02:03:911:112};A1))>0.

Sometimes you need to find numbers separated by spaces. In this case, they are called words-numbers. To find them, you must also use the appropriate tools !SEMTools. This animation clearly shows what actions you need to perform in order to do this.

How to find out if an excel cell contains latin letters

Very often, Excel users confuse the concepts of “Find” and “Extract”, although there is a fairly large difference between them. The first expression means checking if there is a certain character in a text string or data range. In turn, the concept of “Extract” means to pull out the desired character from the text and pass it to another function or write it to a cell.

What needs to be done in order to discover the Latin alphabet? For example, you can use special fonts that will make it possible to identify English characters by eye. For example, this makes the font Dubai Medium, which makes English characters bold.

But what to do if there is a lot of data? In this case, determining by eye the desired sequence of values ​​in order to analyze the data is not enough. In this case, you need to look for ways to automate this process. There are several ways how you can do this.

Using a special function

The main problem of searching for Latin letters is that there are two and a half times more of them than numbers. Therefore, you need to give the program a loop consisting of 26 iterations, which can be quite stressful. But if using an array formula consisting of the above functions CHECK и SEARCH, then this idea does not seem so complicated: =COUNT(SEARCH({“a”:”b”:”c”:”d”:”e”:”f”:”g”:”h”:”i”:”j”:”k”: »l»:»m»:»n»:»o»:»p»:»q»:»r»:»s»:»t»:»u»:»v»:»w»:»x »:»y»:»z»};A1))>0. This formula works well for most situations. For example, if it is not possible to install the appropriate macros that would be able to do this easier and faster.

In the formula described above, A1 is the cell in which the check is performed. Accordingly, you need to put the one that suits your situation. This function returns a boolean value as a result of the check. If a match is found, then the operator returns TRUEif they don’t exist – LYING.

Function SEARCH does not allow case-sensitive searches for characters. To do this, you need to use the operator TO FIND, which performs the same operations, has the same arguments, only it is case-sensitive. Another way is to make the above formula an array formula. In this case, it will look like this:{=COUNT(SEARCH(CHAR(STRING(65:90)),A1))>0}.

Since this is an array formula, it must be specified without parentheses. In this case, after entering, you must press the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Enter (instead of simply pressing the enter key, as is the case with a regular function), after which the curly braces will appear themselves.

If you need to find the Cyrillic alphabet, the sequence of actions is similar, only you need to set the entire sequence of Cyrillic characters as the search range. =COUNT(SEARCH({“a”:”b”:”c”:”g”:”e”:”e”:”e”:”g”:”h”:”i”:”d”: ”k”:”l”:”m”:”n”:”o”:”p”:”r”:”s”:”t”:”y”:”f”:”x”:”c »:”h”:”w”:”u”:”b”:”s”:”b”:”e”:”yu”:”i”};A1))>0. You can also use the function SYMBOL, to do this. {=COUNT(SEARCH(CHAR(STRING(192:223)),A1))>0}

This formula must be written as an array formula. Therefore, you need to press the key combination Ctrl + Shift + Enter instead of simply pressing the enter key. But there are some exceptions where this feature will not work. You must first make sure that the default language for non-Unicode programs is . In this case, there should be no problems. These formulas have some differences from each other. Instead of 33 letters, the last formula uses only 32. That is, it does not take into account the letter ё as Cyrillic.

In this case, similarly as in the previous one, to search for the desired characters in a case-sensitive way, you must use the function TO FIND. Therefore, you can search, for example, half of the alphabet written in small letters and half written in capital letters. The arguments are the same.

How to find words in a cell that contain Cyrillic and Latin

We can logically conclude that to search for those words that contain both Cyrillic and Latin, we need to use as what we are looking for, all the characters of the and English alphabets.

How to find capital letters in a cell

To find capital letters, you need to use the function TO FIND, and as arguments specify capital Cyrillic letters (or elements of the Latin alphabet, if you need to find them) or their codes.

When searching for Cyrillic letters through codes, you need to remember that the ASCII table must first be set to . In simple words, to have localization.

If you need to find any capital letters, regardless of the alphabet in which they need to be searched, you need to use the functions LOWER и EXACT… The sequence of actions is as follows:

1. We make lowercase values ​​in a separate cell.
2. We compare the results with the original ones.
3. After that, we use the following formula: =NOT(EXACT(LOWER(A1),A1))

If these cells do not match, this indicates that some of the characters in the original cell were in upper case.

Finding characters in Excel using regular expressions

You can also use regular expressions to find characters. The best way to do this is with the !SEMTools tool, as it automates a lot of the process of using them. The spectrum of using regular expressions in Excel is quite wide. We will focus first of all on the functions SEARCH, REPLACE, EXTRACT.

The good news is that these functions can be used in both Google Sheets and Excel with this setting.

The first regular function is REGEXMATCH, which can check if this pattern is similar to the one in another cell. Syntax: =REGEXMATCH(“text”;”RegEx pattern to search for”). This function returns one of two values: true or false. What exactly depends on whether a match is actually observed or not. The second function is =REGEXEXTRACT(“text”;”RegEx search pattern”) It allows you to extract the desired characters from a string.

However, this function has slight differences from Google Sheets. It consists in the fact that the latter, if the specified text is not found, return an error, while this add-in shows only an empty value.

And finally, you need to use this formula in order to replace the text: =REGEXREPLACE(“text”;”RegEx search pattern”;”text to replace the found”).

What to do with the found symbols

Good. Suppose we have found symbols. What can be done with them next? There are several options here on how to proceed. For example, you can delete them. For example, if we found the Latin alphabet among the Cyrillic values. You can also replace it with a similar character, only in Cyrillic (for example, large English M to M) or extract this character for use in another formula.

Removing Extra Characters in Excel

There are many ways to remove unwanted characters in Excel. One of the options is to use the Find and Replace function, where you can replace the character you want to remove with an empty string “”. You can use the same regular expressions that are used to replace the found character.

Extract specific characters in Excel

You can use the “Find” function for this, but you can also use the appropriate regular expression, where the first argument is the text to be extracted, and the second is the cell or range to be searched.

Change symbols in Excel

The procedure is the same as deletion, only the desired character must be replaced with another character (including non-printable ones), and not an empty string in the corresponding argument.