Cell contains number

Excel allows a user to check if a cell contains a number by using the COUNT and FIND functions. This step by step tutorial will assist all levels of Excel users in checking if a cell contains any number.

Figure 1. The result of the COUNT and FIND functions

Syntax of the FIND Formula

The generic formula for the FIND function is:

=FIND(find_text, within_text)

The parameters of the FIND function are:

• find_text – a text that we want to find in selected text or cell
• within_text – a text or cell where we want to find a text.

If a text is found, the FIND function returns a position of text in a cell. If it’s not found, the function returns #VALUE! error.

Syntax of the COUNT Formula

The generic formula for the COUNT function is:

=COUNT(value1, value2, ...., valueN)

The parameters of the COUNT function are:

• value1, value2, …, valueN – values that we want to count.

Setting up Our Data for the COUNT Function

Figure 2. Data that we will use in the COUNT example

Let’s look at the structure of the data we will use. In column B we have texts, while in column C we want to return TRUE if the cell contains number and FALSE if not.

Check if cells contain a number

In our example, we want to check if texts from column B contain any number and return a result in column C.

The formula looks like:

=COUNT(FIND({0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, B3)) > 0

The parameter find_text of the FIND function is the array of numbers {0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}. The within_text parameter is B3. When using the array, the FIND function will return a result for every element in the array. Let’s evaluate the formula and see the result:

Figure 3. Evaluate the FIND function

The FIND function returned #VALUE! error for every element of the array, as there is no number in the array.

All of the results of the FIND function are parameters for COUNT function. As errors are not counted, the function returns 0. In the end, we check if the result of the COUNT is greater than 0. As it’s not, the result in the cell C3 is FALSE.

To apply the COUNT function, we need to follow these steps:

• Select cell C3 and click on it
• Insert the formula: =COUNT(FIND({0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9}, B3)) > 0
• Press enter

Figure 4. Using the COUNT and FIND functions to check if cells contain a number

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