Search Bar that Executes Search Based on Radio Button and Key Words

**pomo2016** · 05-04-2016, 04:27 PM

Hi all,

I'm trying to create a Cook Book on excel. The ultimate goal of the excel document is to be able to search for a recipe based off certain ingredients; so if you have tomatoes, you would be able to search for all ingredients that have tomatoes in them.

Essentially, I want to be able to type in "x" amount of ingredients and select a radio button that describes a type of meal (such as breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.). After you fill in those two criteria, you would press the "Search" button and it would execute the search.

To clarify, in cell 9, 12, 15, and 18, one would write the ingredient(s) that they want to search for, and then they would proceed to select the radio button that describes the type of meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, etc.)

Does anyone have any ideas how to do this? I've been stuck on this for a long time and have no idea where to go. Thank you!

**dflak** · 05-06-2016, 09:26 AM

I think this application would be better suited for a database. Clearly you have a many-to-many relationship: an ingredient can be used in many recipes and a recipe can have many ingredients.

However, I will assume you don't have Access or another database and suggest a less robust Excel solution. We'll have to discuss how to organize your data. For example you may have "Tomato" listed 40 times because it will be associated with 25 recipes, 15 of which can be used for lunch or dinner.

I suggest that you organize the data with three elements: ingredient : Recipe : Meal Type.

On second thought instead of meal type, have three columns, data validated to T/F for breakfast, dinner or lunch and then a helper column that computes a code:

Breakfast Only 1
Lunch Only 2
Dinner Only 4
B+L 3
B+D 5
L+D 6
B+L+D 7

This scheme will allow you to enter a recipe once even though it may apply to three meals.

Finally, I don't think anyone is going to take on this task without a sample spreadsheet. You will have to populate the database in Excel with at least several recipes.