The SEARCH functions locate one text string within a second text string, and return the number of the starting position of the first text string from the first character of the second text string. For example, to find the position of the letter “z” in the word “kazam”, you can use the following function:
returns 5, because the word “base” begins at the fifth character of the word “database”. You can use the SEARCH functions to determine the location of a character or text string within another text string, and then use the MID functions to return the text, or use the REPLACE functions to change the text.
The advance users of Excel use this function to manipulate complex text strings
For example if we want to extract kazam from kazam/trainings, first we have to find the position of / (slash symbol) then we use left function to extract letters till the position of / (slash symbol) sign. The position of slash symbol from left side is 6 therefore we subract 1 to get our result without slash symbol.