How to find the position of a character in text
✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3Return the numeric position where a character or substring first appears in a cell.
The formula
| App | Formula | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Excel | =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. Every formula here is confirmed by actually executing it.