Numbers - How to find a single quote in a string

It is most probable the character in your search is not the same character in your string. Apple likes "smart" quotes. Instead of an ASCII code 39 apostrophe, one is probably Unicode 8217.

I turn off smart quotes, mainly for this reason. An "opening single quote" is different from a "closing single quote" and both are different from an actual apostrophe. Same problem with double quotes. Turn it off in Numbers/Preferences/Auto-Correction then re-type the character in your formula or in your string in A1 or both.

One doesn't have to "suspect" or "guess." Numbers can tell you exactly what that character is.

Formulas in example shown in screenshot:

In B2, filled down:

=CODE(MID(A2,3,1))

In C2, filled down:

=CHAR(B2)

In D2, filled down:

=FIND(C2,A2,1)

And for finding the double-quotes:

Formulas in example shown in screenshot:

In B2, filled down:

=CODE(MID(A2,LEN(A2),1))

In C2, filled down:

=CHAR(B2)

In D2, filled down:

=FIND(C2,A2,1)

If you are searching for a straight double-quote and want to put that directly into a formula you need to "escape" with extra " , like this:

=FIND("""",A2,1)

And to find a curly double-quote, you can do this:

=FIND(CHAR(8221),A3,1)

To me it seems as if FIND is working fine in Numbers.

SG

I suspect FIND is looking for a character that is not in cell A1, as in this example:

In Cell B1, the formula shown returns an error.

In Cell B3, searching in A2, the same formula returns 3, a correct result.

Note the differences in content between A1 and A2. These are not format changes; the third and sixth characters are different characters in A1 from those in A2.

Regards,

Barry

Hi flyer,

I can't reproduce that error.

=FIND("'",B2,1)

Tested in Numbers 6.1 under macOS High Sierra

Regards,

Ian.