This will instantly filter the data based on your wildcard criteria like show below: In the Search box, type your criteria, B* in our case.In the target column, click the filter drop-down arrow.The fastest way is to press the Ctrl + Shift + L shortcut. In our sample data set, supposing you want to filter the IDs beginning with "B". To remove all the found asterisk characters, leave the Replace with box empty, and click Replace all.Įxcel wildcards also come very useful when you have a huge column of data and wish to filter that data based on condition. If you'd like to replace the asterisks with something else, switch to the Replace tab and type the character of interest in the Replace with box. For example, to find all the entries containing asterisks, type ~* in the Find what box: a literal asterisk or question mark, include a tilde (~) in your search criteria. To find a character that Excel recognizes as a wildcard, i.e.
FIND AND REPLACE IN MAC NUMBERS HOW TO
How to find and replace wildcard characters
Now, Excel will limit the results to only the ?-? strings: To exclude these from the results, click the Options button, and check the Match entire cell contents box. Technically, strings like AAB-01 or BB-002 also match the criteria because they do contain a ?-? substring. The result looks a bit perplexing, isn't it? So, you open the Find and Replace dialog (Ctrl + F), type ?-? in the Find what box, and press Find All. In the below dataset, supposing you want to find the IDs that consist of 4 characters separated with a hyphen. That works great in most situations, but under certain circumstances can be a complication. For example, if you use "AA" as your search criteria, Excel will return all the entries containing it such as AA-01, 01-AA, 01-AA-02, and so on. How to search with wildcardīy default, the Find and Replace dialog is configured to look for the specified criteria anywhere in a cell, not to match the entire cell contents. The following examples will discuss a few common scenarios and warn you about a couple of caveats. The uses of wildcard characters with Excel's Find and Replace feature are quite versatile. In this case, the 1 st and 3 rd asterisks are wildcards, while the second one denotes a literal asterisk character. *~** - finds any data containing an asterisk, e.g.*~? - finds any entry ending with question mark, e.g.The tilde (~) placed before a wildcard character cancels the effect of a wildcard and turns it into a literal asterisk (~*), a literal question mark (~?), or a literal tilde (~~). pri?e - matches price, pride, prize, and the like.?-? - represents any string containing 2 groups of 3 characters separated with a hyphen such as ABC-DEF, ABC-123, 111-222, etc.? - substitutes any two characters, e.g.? - matches any entry containing one character, e.g.It can help you get more specific when searching for a partial match. The question mark (?) represents any single character. *ch* - represents any word that contains "ch" in any position such as Chad, headache, arch, etc.*ch - substitutes any text string that ends with "ch" such as March, inch, fetch, etc.ch* - matches any word that begins with "ch" such as Charles, check, chess, etc.The asterisk (*) is the most general wildcard character that can represent any number of characters. You can use them as comparison criteria for filtering data, to find entries that have some common part, or to perform fuzzy matching in formulas. Wildcards come handy in any situation when you need a partial match. A tilde (~) forces Excel to treat theses as regular characters, not wildcards. The two common wildcard characters that Excel recognizes are an asterisk (*) and a question mark (?). In other words, when you do not know an exact character, you can use a wildcard in that place. In Microsoft Excel, a wildcard is a special kind of character that can substitute any other character. How to find and replace wildcards in Excel.
There are only 3 wildcard characters in Excel (asterisk, question mark, and tilde), but they can do so many useful things! You can think of a wildcard as a joker that can take on any value. When you are looking for something but not exactly sure exactly what, wildcards are a perfect solution. Everything you need to know about wildcards on one page: what they are, how to best use them in Excel, and why wildcards are not working with numbers.