i have couple thousand of cell need extract document numbers out from. cells have no format ever, every document number starts "doc#-" example b2: this example cell showing doc number doc#-12351-2432-1b , second document doc#-2342-rtf-dd-09, there may several more or one. i looking way extract document numbers individual numbers, separate cells, line, etc. best way go this? current have extremely rough formula. =mid($b2,find("doc#-",$b2,1),find(" ",$b2,find("doc#-",$b2,1))-find("doc#-",$b2,1) which: finds first doc, find space after it, returns number mid. thinking vba way solve this, i'm stumped on how. select cells wish process , run small macro: sub qwerty() dim long, v string, k long each r in selection v = replace(r.value, ",", " ") ary = split(v, "doc#-") k = 1 = 1 ubound(ary) bry = split(ary(i), " ")