- Whole Word Match
- Contains Pattern
- Match by Letter Case
- Regular Expressions (REGEX)
- Repeated Words in a Cell
- More Word Tools in !SEMTools
The Find Words section in the !SEMTools Excel add-in helps you locate words inside cells based on a variety of criteria. Just like other tools in the add-in, these procedures return only TRUE (if the word is found) or FALSE (if it’s not found or doesn’t match the criteria).
This set of tools is ideal when you need to identify words that match a specific pattern, start or end a certain way, follow a grammatical rule, or repeat within a single cell. The goal is to make it quick and accurate — without writing complex formulas.
Whole Word Match
These tools look for exact matches of a word or a list of words inside a cell.
- Find a word in a cell — Useful for spotting a specific term. Sounds simple, but short words can trigger false positives. The add-in procedures are more reliable than standard formulas here.
- Find words from a list — Choose between two modes:
- Check that a cell contains all words from a list
- Or return TRUE if it contains any of them
Contains Pattern
Find words that include a pattern:
- At the beginning — e.g., any word starting with “auto”: “auto”, “automobile”, “autoparts”
- At the end — e.g., words ending in “tech”: “fintech”, “edtech”
- Anywhere in the word — e.g., searching for “repair” will catch “repairs”, “home-repair”, “repaired”
You can search with a single pattern or a list — handy for checking multiple roots or stems.
Match by Letter Case
These tools help identify word formatting styles:
- All lowercase — e.g., “purchase”
- First capitalized — e.g., “Chicago”, useful for finding proper names
- All uppercase — e.g., “NASA”, “RTX2080”, helpful for spotting acronyms, product IDs, or brands
Regular Expressions (REGEX)
If you’re dealing with more complex patterns, REGEX support in !SEMTools lets you find cells by regular expression. For example:
- Find words where numbers alternate with letters
- Find all words that are exactly 5 characters long
Repeated Words in a Cell
Sometimes automatic generators or manual input cause a word to be repeated in the same phrase. This tool quickly spots such duplicates so you can clean up the data.
More Word Tools in !SEMTools
In addition to finding words, the add-in also offers:
- Remove words — strip specific words from cells
- Replace words — swap out unwanted terms with new ones
- Extract words — pull out words that match your criteria
These tools are designed to save time when working with large keyword lists or messy data — especially for SEO, PPC, and content auditing tasks.
This post is also available in RU.