I'm pretty sure my question has been answered here before, but I don't know or remember what to call what I'm trying to do so I'm having trouble searching for it. In my FoxPro-based database it's called "multiple contains".

In a nutshell: I'm trying to create a formula that will highlight cells based on text they contain (not equal). The challenge is that I have many text strings I'm looking for. I know how to do this one at a time, but I was hoping there'd be an easier way.

Specifically: I want to highlight my entire spreadsheet and set up a conditional format that will highlight any cell that contains "Bob" or "Mary" or "Jim" or "John". The cells equal text like this: "Mary Smith" or "Ms. Mary Smith" or "Jim Bob Jones" or "Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bob Jones".

Jeez, as I'm explaining it, it sounds so familiar, I might have been the one who asked it (so embarrassing if that's true), but it's not in my list of posts under my profile, so maybe it became too complicated to explain and I gave up before posting.

Thanks for any help anyone can offer,

Angie