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Power Platform Community / Forums / Power Automate / Using find and replace
Power Automate
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Using find and replace

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Posted on by Lee H 15
Hi all, 
 
I'm looking for a steer in the right direction if someone can help. I'm new to the power automate desktop software but am learning fast. 
 
I have a data table with extracted PDF text which is parsed down to matches. I'm then looking to find the contents of a cell BELOW a cell with fixed information.
 
So essentially I have a cell that reads "Equipment type" and the cell directly below is what I need. This cell data is never the same. 
 
I think the find and replace function is what I need to use but can't quite workout how to use it to store the cell below the header as a variable for the use I have in mind further down the flow. I think a regular expression is needed but I'm not good with them. 
 
Here how my flow is currently:
 
 
I've googled this mercilessly but haven't come across a solution to this.
 
This is the closest thing I can find and it's not even that close to what I need.
 
 
Any help at all would be appreciated.
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Power Automate Desktop
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  • Verified answer
    eetuRobo Profile Picture
    eetuRobo 4,484 Super User 2026 Season 1 on at
    Find or replace in data table returns you a data table that has the cell position. The catch is that even though the Row and Column values are always numbers the types of them are text. So you need to convert them to number.

    When you get the DataTableMatches it should look something like this:


    So now you have the row where the "Equipment type" is. Then since the row number and the column number in DataTableMatches variable are text type you need to use Convert text to number -action. So to get the row use %DataTableMatches[0][0]% to get the first rows first column. But also add one to get the next lines cell value.


    So like this:

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