>>I think youv'e reversed your answers - i.e. you mean the 'search in' string can be 20K and the 'search-for' can be between 1 and 20 characters?
>
>The search in string is about 20k and the string that we would like to locate is between 1 and 20 characters.
>
>>Elsewhere you mentioned that the Mid() would be called 'thousands' of times. Can you us a more general idea of what you are trying to achieve?
>
>For each word, in each line, a Mid() function can be called. I can have 800 lines for examples with 20 to 50 words in each.

Sorry, I'm being dense. So you have a piece of text with 16,000-40,000 words. What are you doing with Mid() ?