How to search in excel

[johnsmit]

Hi all

I'm a programmer but don't known much about excel programming. I'm posting this on behalf of my son who's in Africa and doesn't have much internet access. He's building a spreadsheet that will be essentially a library database with book title, subject, etc. He has put together a search form where people can type in, say, part of a title and part of a subject. Now he wants to search the spreadsheet using those keys. He was using some 'range' function but I wasn't sure that was right. Any ideas would be appreciated.

thanks!
john

[davegugg]

He was probably using the Range.Find method. That is, IMO, the best way to do it. Since more than one item will be searched, he'll have to loop through each found cell and check that the other search criteria is also met, probably using the OFFSET function.

Being a programmer yourself, I'm sure you've already told him that database software, such as MS Access, could handle this issue more easily and efficiently.