How to find the position of a character in text
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 ✓ Verified in Google Sheets (2026-08-30)Return the numeric position where a character or substring first appears in a cell.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel (desktop) | =FIND("-",A2) | FIND is case-sensitive; SEARCH is case-insensitive and allows wildcards. |
| Google Sheets | =FIND("-",A2) | Identical. |
| LibreOffice Calc | =FIND("-",A2) | Identical. |
How it works
FIND(find_text, within_text) returns the 1-based position of the first match. In 'AB-123' the dash is the 3rd character, so it returns 3. FIND errors with #VALUE! if the character isn't present - wrap in IFERROR to return a fallback.
Verified, not just documented
We ran =FIND("-",A2) in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 3 — 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 3 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
FIND — see full Excel, Google Sheets & LibreOffice compatibility for each.
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