How to check if a cell contains any word from a list
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 ✓ Verified in Google Sheets (2026-08-30)Flag rows whose text includes any of several keywords — banned words, categories, tags to match.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel (desktop) | =SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(D2:D4,A2)))>0 | D2:D4 = the list of words, A2 = the text. Returns TRUE if any word is found (case-insensitive). |
| Google Sheets | =SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(D2:D4,A2)))>0 | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(D2:D4,A2)))>0 | Identical. |
How it works
SEARCH looks for each word from the list inside the cell and returns a position number when found or an error when not; ISNUMBER turns those into TRUE/FALSE, the -- converts to 1/0, and SUMPRODUCT adds them — a total above 0 means at least one word matched. "large red widget" contains "widget" (from the list), so the result is TRUE. SEARCH is case-insensitive; swap it for FIND to match case. To return WHICH word matched, wrap in a lookup; to count HOW MANY matched, drop the >0 and keep the SUMPRODUCT. This is the array-powered version of stacking many ISNUMBER(SEARCH(...)) tests with OR.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH(D2:D4,A2)))>0 in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned True — exactly the expected result. We then ran the same formulas in Google Sheets, executed 2026-08-30: a formula-only workbook goes into Google Drive, which converts it to a Sheet and recalculates every formula with Google’s own engine, and comes back out as .xlsx carrying the values Google computed. It returned True for the worked example, the same value LibreOffice produced. Both engines’ numbers on this page are executed results. The Excel formula follows Microsoft’s official documented syntax — we do not run desktop Excel.
Functions used
SUMPRODUCT · ISNUMBER · SEARCH — see full Excel, Google Sheets & LibreOffice compatibility for each.
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