INSTR  

Use to find a string within another string searching from the left.

This function will give the first instance of a string within another string searching from the left hand side of the string. To use this function the format needs to be

INSTR (target text,search text)

Here we are searching for the string RED within the string BLUE GREEN RED. Here is the formula as entered with the String radio button selected.

=INSTR("BLUE GREEN RED",RED) which gives the answer 12

This would put the following formula in the input field once the dialog was dismissed via OK

=STR(INSTR("BLUE GREEN RED",RED))

If the text is not found the function returns a value of 0.

Any text containing spaces needs to be contained within "".

The function is case sensitive so the following would return a value of 0.

=STR(INSTR("BLUE GREEN RED",Red))