Thanks to you all for your solutions, they all work perfectly, of course! A lovely xmas present ![Smilie](https://www.excelforum.com/images/smilies/smile.gif)
I wondered whether these formula are easily edited to cater for the first 2, 3 or 4 letters of each name. I managed to come up with a solution, using Glenn's formula above, where one can enter the number of characters for the search in one cell, type the desired text string in another cell and hey presto, the results pop up!
=IFERROR(INDEX('all boulders'!$D:$D,AGGREGATE(15,6,ROW('all boulders'!$D$12:$D$8000)/(LEFT('all boulders'!$D$12:$D$8000,$W$1)=$X$1),ROWS(X$5:X5))),"")
cell W1 being the # of characters
cell X1 the string of characters
Thanks all, you are amazing. I love excel and trying to find solutions to my whimsical desires to manipulate my spreadsheets and you all have provided me with more tools to do this. I am self taught and only use excel in a personal space, not for work.
If it is not too much bother, I would appreciate either links to any tutorials you know of that will teach me what's going on with the ROW function in these formula, or a simple explanation here if it's not too much to ask.
Regardless, you have given me something new to tinker with and try to figure out for myself.
Many thanks
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