Search Function in Multiple Columns in Microsoft Excel

yes

You can also add to the previous, a conditional foarmating to highlight the cells that are true.

so now how do i input those two inputs into the "find" dialogue box?

You don't actually need a full dialogue box. You can extend Randall's idea by dedicating a cell, e.g. cell A1, to the word you are searching for in column A and another cell, e.g. cell B1, for the word in B. You then amend the formula to

=IF(AND(A2=$A$1,B2=$B$1), TRUE, FALSE)

I think you are trying to use the Find & Select facility to do the 2 searches!

You can't do that as far as I can see. Randal's formula is to be written into each cell at the right column, as shown.

To highlight the result, when "True", you can use the "Conditional Formating" icon, in the Home tab, on the column with the formula, to highlight the cells that contain a TRUE result. (search Help to use it if not familiar).

Why are you doing the search?

When I want to isolate the cells that contain specific values I use the data filter function. Highlight the entire range you want to search through and click on the filter in the data tab. Then when you filter the specific columns for what you want all the adjacent columns will be displayed as well.

Of course, this is no help if you're programming.

my work in telecommunications involves working with an Excel spreadsheet.

all addresses in our region are mapped to telecommunications network elements for ease of providing efficient service.

Eg if a customer comes and says he wants service at number 46 Bugton street, we open our excel document and search for "bugton"

eg

column a #column b# column c

Road #number #network element

bugton# 23

bugton #42

bugton #44

bugton #46

bugton #48

winder #4

palm #6

winder #23

now our search result will give us so many rows with "bugton" and a number,whereas i just want the line with "bugton" in column a and 46 in column b

i hope that is now clear.

As i said before, you cannot have what you want using the search or find that is provided normally.

you can use the 'Conditional Formating' on column 'a' to highlight all the cells with 'Burgton', and on column 'b' to highlight the cells with the number value you want.

This way you can immediately see the result in the highlighted cells.

If you tp just pic-up the 2 adjacent dells you are seeking, in any other way, you need to write a macro or Vbasic function to do this the way you want. (you need to know how to program in Vbasic for Applications in Excel.