Confused Search or Match Lookup or index

Originally Posted by NBVC

In A3 copied down:

=MATCH("*"&B3&"*",$C$3:$C$24,0)

this will give you the row number within range C3:C24 where a match (if any) occurs.

Is that what you need?

Yes that is the idea and your solution works fine. I sussed that I need to add 2 to the line number , so as to have it line up correctly to the grid lines. I have one query though. The TEXT HV*PAX*PH in B9
should have been picked up as a match in C9 but is not.Is there a teak needed to allow this to comply.
But this is looking great . Thanks very much. Realy appreciate your assistance

Thats Magic .Well spotted. That cured that issue, I have one other issue which came up when i was testing live data. I have shown it on the enclosed example, B10 & B11 show as matching with C18 but is only a partial match-missing the * , as in *7302* *7303*. Normally the items in Column B would not shown multiplee in a row. And hopefully one last question Is there a way to highlight in Green the matched items in column C. I could not see how I could do it with conditional formating.
Once again many thanks
CC

Thats great. It works fantastically well for my purpose. Many Thanks again for you prompt assistance. To see the theory behind these entries would you suggest any particular references? Also any helpful references I can read re the Conditional formatting for Column C . You have been a wonder
Cheers
CC

Many thanks once again.

cheers
cc