Work with the example
Can you change only the second draft in this review label? A5 holds draft / draft / final and B5 chooses occurrence 2. C is the proposed display; A remains the original. D shows what happens when all occurrences are replaced.
| Formula | Baseline output |
|---|---|
| SUBSTITUTE(A5;"draft";"review";B5) | draft / review / final |
| No occurrence argument | review / review / final |
Edit the working cells
Set B5 to 1: C5 becomes review / draft / final. A fresh B5=3 leaves draft / draft / final unchanged because only two matches exist. A6 holds drafting / draft; replacing its second draft gives drafting / review.
Check the failure case
SUBSTITUTE matches a substring, not a whole word. Replacing the first draft in A6 changes drafting to reviewing. An unchanged output at occurrence 3 does not confirm that a requested edit happened.
Which argument distinguishes one replacement from replacing every match?
Show the worked answer
The occurrence argument: B5 in the working formula.