Return "True" if a cell within a row of cells contains a certain text string

I have a spreadsheet in which each cell of data consists of titles of courses offered over several semesters; it includes course numbers, a semester (Spring, Summer, Fall), and a year (2010, 2011, 2012).

Each row of data consists of a particular student's name.

The columns themselves list the particular course each student has taken, beginning with the first. Thus, there is no particular meaning to each column, and the first column in each row merely lists the first in a chronological list of courses each particular student has taken.

I would like to find a formula that would look within a row for whether any cell in that row contains the text, say, "Fall 2012". If the formula does find that text within any cell in that row, I would like to return "Y"; if not, I would like to return "N".

Is there such a formula?

Thanks for your help!

Originally Posted by FDibbins

Hi and welcome to the forum

If that is the only data in a cell, you could use something like...=countif(range,"Fall 2012")>0

Thanks for the reply!

Sadly, no. Each cell is complicated by the existence of course numbers, and course numbers of unequal length at that. (I had thought of doing a column split, or a LEFT/RIGHT function, but the number of characters from cell to cell is uneven.)

Originally Posted by FDibbins

Hi and welcome to the forum

If that is the only data in a cell, you could use something like...=countif(range,"Fall 2012")>0

On a second try, I used the asterisk key as a wildcard. That seemed to work, using the function above.

Thanks for your help!