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Formula: Find()

Category: Collections

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Find()

Allows you to find the position of a chosen value

Or, put otherwise...

Hey Coda, can you tell me where in a list a certain value is?

Find() has two required parameters:

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Needle

Find(Needle, Haystack)

This is the value you want to find within the list ("Haystack").

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Haystack

Find(Needle, Haystack)

This is the list or string in which you want to search for the needle.

Find() also has three optional parameters:

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StartAt

Find(Needle, Haystack, StartAt, IgnoreCase, IgnoreAccents)

The position you want to start from. Defaults to 1.

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IgnoreCase

Find(Needle, Haystack, StartAt, IgnoreCase, IgnoreAccents)

Whether you want to ignore text case. Defaults to "false".

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IgnoreAccents

Find(Needle, Haystack, StartAt, IgnoreCase, IgnoreAccents)

Whether you want to ignore accents. Defaults to false.

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Find has two main use-cases...

Finding The Position of a Word, Letter, or String

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There are many formulas to help you identify whether or not a word or string of characters is within a body of text. ContainsText(), for example, will tell you whether or not a word itself is in a body. But Find() will tell you: Whether or not that word is in the text Where in the text that word begins

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Let’s take for example the paragraph above. Try typing words into the text-box below to find the position of words.

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Ignore Case

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Your word is at position 7 in the text

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If your word was found in the text-body, Find() will return the first position within the text where it is found but will not provide any other data.

Further notes on Find():

For example, if you type in the letter a to the box above, Find() will return the number = 7. Try it out above and watch the actual result of Find() populate here →

7

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Find() counts every single character within text including spaces, so the letter a first appears after the 5 letters in the word “there” and the space after it.

If Find() does not find any words/strings that match your Needle, it will return the result of -1.

Find The Position of an Item Within a List

Find() is extremely useful and shines when you want to find the position of an item in a list as opposed to the position of text within a body. Let’s learn by looking at three practical use-cases for Find() that you can use in your docs today.

1. Finding and Deleting Duplicates in a Table

Find() can be useful when used to identify

duplicate values

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within a table, as it assists you in actually deleting them.

Click around into the column formulas below to see how Find() is used to identify duplicates and then view how the red button is able to delete them from the table in one action.

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Delete Duplicates Below

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Name

Find() to identify duplicates

Is Duplicate?

There are no rows in this table

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2. Automatic Conditional Formatting

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3. Auto-Numbering of Groups

Find() can help you auto-number groups of similar things within a table. For example, take the table of Invoices below. Click into the gray column below to view how the Invoice number is automatically generated and unique for each company

Company

Invoice Number

Amount

Find

Nike

Invoice #1

$10,000.00

Invoice #2

$3,654.00

Starbucks

Invoice #1

$4,000.00

Invoice #2

$1,254.00

Invoice #3

$1,325.00

Apple

Invoice #1

$346.00

Invoice #2

$8,745.00

Invoice #3

$2,346.00

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Practice: Determine if a word is in a body of text

Done

Use Find() to auto-number a group of invoices

Done

Challenge: Use Find() to replace the word Dog in a sentence

Done

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Gallery

Want to print your doc?
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Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.

FindFind

Finding The Position of a Word, Letter, or String

Find The Position of an Item Within a List

1. Finding and Deleting Duplicates in a Table

2. Automatic Conditional Formatting

3. Auto-Numbering of Groups

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