SEARCH

Supported, behaves as documented

Category: Text · Last tested 2026-09-01

Real compatibility results for the SEARCH function: executed in Excel for the web, Google Sheets and LibreOffice Calc, with desktop Excel behavior from Microsoft’s official documentation (we do not run desktop Excel — Excel for the web is a different application and is executed separately). Syntax and links to that documentation are below.

Support matrix

Engine	Documented	Live-tested	Verdict
Excel (desktop)	Yes	No — documented only	n/a
Excel for the web	—	Yes (recalc, 2026-09-01)	Supported, behaves as documented
Google Sheets	Yes	Yes (Drive import, 2026-08-29)	Supported, behaves as documented
LibreOffice Calc	Yes	Yes (25.8.7.3, 2026-07-29)	Supported, behaves as documented

LibreOffice version history

We executed the same test cases under each LibreOffice release to show exactly when SEARCH’s support changed — not documentation claims, real results.

LibreOffice version	Verdict	Tested
24.2.0.3	Supported, behaves as documented	2026-08-29
24.8.7.2	Supported, behaves as documented	2026-08-29
25.2.0.3	Supported, behaves as documented	2026-08-29
25.8.7.3	Supported, behaves as documented	2026-07-29

Executed test cases

Excel for the web (executed 2026-09-01 via OneDrive recalculation)

These values come from Excel for the web, not from desktop Excel. They are two different implementations of the calculation engine, and this run measured only the web one: the corpus was uploaded to OneDrive as .xlsx, recalculated by Excel for the web on open, and downloaded again for readback. Excel for the web is a rolling service with no pinnable version, so the run is identified by its date. Where a value here disagrees with the Expected column — which is Microsoft’s documentation of the desktop product — we cannot tell you whether the web engine diverges from the desktop one or the documentation is wrong about both, because we do not run desktop Excel.

Formula	Description	Result	Expected	Verdict
=SEARCH("a","Apple")	SEARCH is case-insensitive: lowercase 'a' matches the leading uppercase 'A' -> position 1 (contrast with FIND on this exact same input, which is case-sensitive and returns #VALUE!)	1	1 Provenance Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-function-9ab04538-0e55-4719-a72e-b6f54513b495 - SEARCH is not case-sensitive	Matched
=SEARCH("p*e","Apple")	SEARCH supports wildcards unlike FIND: '' matches any sequence of characters, so "pe" matches the substring "pple" starting at position 2	2	2 Provenance Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-function-9ab04538-0e55-4719-a72e-b6f54513b495 - SEARCH allows the wildcard characters '?' and '*' in find_text; FIND does not support wildcards at all	Matched
=SEARCH("?pple","Apple")	'?' wildcard matches exactly one character, so "?pple" matches "Apple" starting at position 1	1	1	Matched
=SEARCH("z","Apple")	find_text not present anywhere in within_text -> #VALUE!	#VALUE!	#VALUE!	Matched

Google Sheets (executed 2026-08-29 via Drive import)

Google Sheets is a rolling service with no pinnable version, so this run is identified by its date. The corpus was imported to Drive as .xlsx, recalculated by Sheets, and exported back for readback.

Formula	Description	Result	Expected	Verdict
=SEARCH("a","Apple")	SEARCH is case-insensitive: lowercase 'a' matches the leading uppercase 'A' -> position 1 (contrast with FIND on this exact same input, which is case-sensitive and returns #VALUE!)	1	1 Provenance Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-function-9ab04538-0e55-4719-a72e-b6f54513b495 - SEARCH is not case-sensitive	Matched
=SEARCH("p*e","Apple")	SEARCH supports wildcards unlike FIND: '' matches any sequence of characters, so "pe" matches the substring "pple" starting at position 2	2	2 Provenance Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-function-9ab04538-0e55-4719-a72e-b6f54513b495 - SEARCH allows the wildcard characters '?' and '*' in find_text; FIND does not support wildcards at all	Matched
=SEARCH("?pple","Apple")	'?' wildcard matches exactly one character, so "?pple" matches "Apple" starting at position 1	1	1	Matched
=SEARCH("z","Apple")	find_text not present anywhere in within_text -> #VALUE!	#VALUE!	#VALUE!	Matched

LibreOffice Calc 25.8.7.3 (tested 2026-07-29)

Formula	Description	Result	Expected	Verdict
=SEARCH("a","Apple")	SEARCH is case-insensitive: lowercase 'a' matches the leading uppercase 'A' -> position 1 (contrast with FIND on this exact same input, which is case-sensitive and returns #VALUE!)	1	1 Provenance Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-function-9ab04538-0e55-4719-a72e-b6f54513b495 - SEARCH is not case-sensitive	Matched
=SEARCH("p*e","Apple")	SEARCH supports wildcards unlike FIND: '' matches any sequence of characters, so "pe" matches the substring "pple" starting at position 2	2	2 Provenance Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/search-function-9ab04538-0e55-4719-a72e-b6f54513b495 - SEARCH allows the wildcard characters '?' and '*' in find_text; FIND does not support wildcards at all	Matched
=SEARCH("?pple","Apple")	'?' wildcard matches exactly one character, so "?pple" matches "Apple" starting at position 1	1	1	Matched
=SEARCH("z","Apple")	find_text not present anywhere in within_text -> #VALUE!	#VALUE!	#VALUE!	Matched