hi Chris. any normal formula in excel would use the end result of the cell rather than what's inside the formula. this is something new i learned from vlady. follow these steps
1. click on cell B1
2. press CTRL + F3
3. click on New & name it whatever you want. i'll name it FindNum
4. Refers to:
=GET.CELL(6,A1)
the 6 there is to get the contents of the formula. here's a full list:
http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/excel-q...arguments.html
5. Close the window.
6. you can now use your formula, but instead of A1, use the new Named Range
=ISNUMBER(SEARCH("7.3",FindNum))

note that by clicking B1 in step (1), Excel is recognizing that you are referencing 1 cell to the left of B1. this is going to be relative to where you use the formula. so if you use it on K10, it will be based on J10 (1 cell to the left of J10). and another thing is that this file now needs to be macro-enabled. you have to save as xls or xlsm. when you open it, you have to enable macros for it to work. regular formulas can't help you. so you either have to use this or macro coding