Excel asterisk wildcard not working This will force the formula to consider the star as a star itself and not a wildcard placeholder. The tilde character, on the other hand, is used to denote a wildcard Available wildcards Excel has 3 wildcards you can use in your formulas: Asterisk (*) - zero or more characters Question mark (?) - any one character Tilde (~) - escape for literal character (~*) a literal question mark (~?), or a literal tilde (~~). Here we discuss how to use the three types of wildcards with examples and downloadable excel template. Microsoft Excel is the most popular spreadsheet app for database creation, data analysis Excel usually considers the "*" symbol to be one of its wildcard symbols, so it can behave a bit unexpectedly. Feb 20, 2025 · Discover how to effectively use the asterisk in Excel formulas. I have a cell that just has an asterisk in it. May 26, 2024 · Final Thoughts Wildcards are a powerful tool for working with text data in Excel. It's all working fine apart from the *. Here is a summary of the different types of Excel wildcards. Master its roles as a multiplication operator and wildcard to enhance your data analysis skills. Here's my situation: I have two columns. For example if you are searching a string which ends with question mark. [SOLVED] Application. Please help as this is driving me crazy, it's not critical as I can work around. Take a look at the basics of building an expression. 21 votes, 12 comments. (In bold below) What am I doing wrong? I'm having trouble with lines 5 and 6. This is because Excel treats certain symbols as wildcards or operators rather than plain text. If a user is believed to have used such tools to provide a forum answer, sanctions may be imposed. Note: wildcards only work with text, not numbers. Wildcard characters work best in situations where the given data is incomplete or partially available. I need to lookup a value that contained in a cell as a part of string. Jan 6, 2020 · Wildcard represents one or more other characters. Wildcards are special characters used in Excel that replace other characters in a formula. Apr 11, 2025 · In the realm of Excel, wildcards are the unsung heroes of search and replace functions, pattern matching, and formulas. So today in this post, I’d like to share with you how to use wildcard characters with VLOOKUP. I know this is something to do with it being a wildcard character but I don't know how to fix it. I am aware the wildcards do not work on numbers but even if I change column data type to "Text" - it still doesn't work correctly. Mar 14, 2023 · Everything you need to know about wildcards: what wildcard characters Excel recognizes, and how to best use them with built-in features and in formulas with text and numbers. Jan 24, 2020 · The issue could be caused by wild card doesn’t work in Filter Function that because the wild card * cannot use in comparison operation situation. That's WRONG. Excel wildcards Excel supports three wildcards that can be used in formulas: Asterisk (*) - zero or more characters Question mark (?) - any one character Sep 5, 2017 · I understand the basic use of the vlookup with wildcard but I'm running into a problem lately. Use the TEXT () function to convert numbers before applying wildcard operations for consistent results. Elevate your spreadsheet skills with us! May 6, 2023 · In the following example the implicit wild cards do work when COUNTIF is involved. Is the symbol * a wildcard in excel? If there a way around this or do I need to amend my system generated data to replace * with something else? Aug 30, 2024 · Types of wildcards to use with VLOOKUP In Excel, wildcard characters are used to do partial matches *️⃣ Excel supports three different kinds of wildcard characters. Jul 30, 2012 · Re: problem with using asterisk as wildcard in conditional formatting Thanks for the response dilipandey, but if you look at the end of my post I do know that the ISNUMBER and SEARCH functions provide a way to do this, I was just curious as to why the asterisk was seemingly working well when using the SUMIF yet wasn't when attempting to use it See full list on trumpexcel. My data includes values like: 1. The conditional function like COUNTIF,AND,OR, SEARCH are used here. g. My current formula In my spreadsheet, the text in COLUMN E will sometimes contain a * (not a wildcard, the actual "*"… An asterisk in Excel is a wildcard representing characters. I need to create a formula that shows 'overdue' if it is more than 10 days past the jobs completion date. Jun 29, 2024 · RSGrayson There were no wildcards used in your original formula. Match help. There are three wildcards in Excel: the asterisk, question mark, and tilde. Excel Wildcard 1 – Question Mark (?) The question mark symbol represents a single character. Mar 17, 2014 · The first one in my report works perfectly; it's a dropdown where you select an employee name and a table populates their individual metrics based on which employee is selectedif you select the wildcard asterisk in the data validation it reflects the entire teams metrics. Jun 21, 2019 · Put a tilde character in front of the asterisk (that is not to be considered a wildcard). Aug 3, 2023 · In Google Sheets, we use wildcards to find data and perform different operations using functions. We also share examples for each wildcard and explain how to troubleshoot any issues. 3. The table it is linking to is as follows C 7 B 8 A 9 A* 10 It all pulls through fine, it gives me 7 if one column contains Apparently, Excel wildcards can only search a certain number of characters. I’m having an issue using the asterisk wildcard in some situations. Mar 25, 2022 · How to add a wildcard in Excel Don’t worry if you’re not familiar with wildcards, but they are something you should review because they really come in handy. Notice that the wildcard search is not case sensitive and it will count any instance of the word, even where it’s not a word on its own like in the case of ‘Pineapples’. Nov 26, 2023 · CountIF statement not working when Asterisk is returned as a character from IFERROR I've used a VLOOKUP statement to search a sheet for module codes. Example: You are working with a worksheet with the content in column A. Master asterisk, question mark & tilde wildcards for efficient lookups. Aug 31, 2011 · You could simply use a wildcard (an asterisk, *, is a wildcard in Excel) in your COUNTIF formula like this: =COUNTIF(A5:A9,"*apples*") Your result will be 4. "*Steve*"), but I also don't want to add asterisks to the beginning and end of each name in the name list. Jun 30, 2010 · An * is a wildcard which is used on strings and strings alone (not numbers). Jul 15, 2024 · While working in Excel sheets, sometimes you need to use wildcards for many purposes. However, for some reason my Excel doesn't think the words in the range are equal to the criteri Jul 13, 2024 · Learn how to use wildcards with XLOOKUP in Excel for powerful, flexible data searches. I need to count the instances that "A*" appears, the actual asterisk character rather than a wildcard. When I try to do a find replace of '*12' it replaces everything prior to the *12 since the * is flagged as the wildcard. For the best help attach a sample workbook to your post Attention - ExcelForum Rules have been updated as of August 2023. Whether you’re counting cells, summing values, or looking up data, wildcards can help you work more efficiently and Jul 29, 2024 · Hi there, my system data uses a * to denote if a cost is billable and when I pull this as a criteria in a SUMIFS formula, it does not work and brings up everything as if this criteria is not considered. The following is an example: ABSource ValueFormulas in Column BValue Returned In Column… Aug 15, 2024 · In this article, i have demonstrated two methods including Find and Replace & Filter option in excel find * character not wildcard. . The challenge is that the asterisk (*) is reserved as a wildcard in functions like the SUMIFS function, so you can't match a literal occurrence of this character without using a special syntax. One such character is an asterisk. These rules apply to everyone for the benefit of all, please take a moment now to May 18, 2023 · The IF function doesn't support wildcards directly, so we can't use IF by itself. Here's a simple example of my formula that resides in {Column B}: =IF (A2="*McCaleb",TRUE,FALSE) Here's my array: {Column A} {Column B} Justin McCaleb FALSE Daniel McCaleb FALSE Tori McCaleb FALSE Jeff McCaleb FALSE Renee McCaleb FALSE Jun 5, 2014 · I even tried multiplying (6&"*")* 1 to convert back to a number but it doesn't work :P If I want to exclude a certain number in one of the argument of the SUMIFS formula from above then I would put <>6201, without any quotes, correct? In this video I demonstrate how to perform a wildcard "contains" test in an IF statement. 3 1. In this article, we will learn the possible reasons why wildcards do not work while used in functions and their solutions. Mar 20, 2009 · I am having trouble with my VLOOKUP formula finding an exact match in a table of values when the values contain an asterisk. When doing a SUMIFS, it worked fine when I referenced that cell as the criteria. Feb 18, 2020 · I attempted using the wildcard "*smoke*" and this did not work. Feb 20, 2025 · Ever found yourself staring at an Excel spreadsheet, wondering what magic symbol could simplify your work? Enter the humble asterisk (*). You cannot use the wildcard characters *, ! in a logical test. There will also be solutions covering case sensitivity. They are the asterisks (*), question marks (?), and tildes (~) of the spreadsheet world, each serving a unique purpose in assisting users to navigate and manipulate data with Jul 31, 2024 · VLOOKUP with wildcard in Excel is done by applying single wildcard and using multiple wildcards and how to avoid wildcards is also discussed Tilde (~) wildcard is used when we need to find the symbol question mark or asterisk (not as wildcards). chatGPT, BARD, GPT4 etc) to create forum answers is not permitted. But sometimes problems arise that the wildcard is not working in Google Sheets. Asterisk (*) The asterisk character means any number of characters in the world of a wildcard search. So, for example, “Ap*” will match “Apple“, “Application May 23, 2010 · If I filter with 2 as the parameter the range is filtered correctly, but it doesn't with the wildcard *. and I want to replace all of these to be *1. In some instances, though, it can provide erroneous results. What if you need to count the number of asterisks in a range of cells, however? Sep 18, 2024 · Excel Wildcard characters and Examples As we mentioned above, wildcards only work with text. Read this guide to learn the techniques to search for asterisk in Excel. It’s not just a starry character on your keyboard; in Excel, it holds the power to multiply, find patterns, and more. Jun 14, 2016 · The way Excel implements the * wildcard is fundamentally wrong, in my opinion. They are used to take the place of characters in a formula, whether as any number of characters or a single character, expressed as * (asterisk) and ? (question mark). There are different types of wildcard characters, each of them with different uses. By using the asterisk (*) and question mark (?) characters in your formulas, you can perform complex searches and manipulations that would be difficult or impossible with regular text matching. Wildcard characters are all about searching a text with a partial match. For example, s*d finds "sad" and "started". The problem I am having is that I wanted to use an IF statement but with a wildcard but now know that is not possible but I don't know a workaround. e. The asterisk represents zero, one, or more characters, the question mark represents any single character, and the tilde is used as an escape character for literal characters such as ~* for a literal asterisk, ~? for a literal question mark, or ~~ for a literal tilde. Column 1 has names in it, Column 2 has dates (in this very format, no spaces between the characters). So, to count the number of cells with an asterisk either by itself or embedded within other text, use this (or course, change the range as needed) Sep 26, 2021 · In MS Excel, I'm trying to make a wildcard search using the SUMIF function. 3*"} - which picks up the last two, but not the first. One such character is the asterisk (*) and it can make data analysis challenging. If you have numeric values, use logical operators in the formula. Jun 12, 2007 · A lot of cells that have *12, *11, *10, etc. When you use the Find and Replace dialog box to find or replace a character such as a tilde (~), an asterisk (*), or a question mark (?), you must add a tilde (~) before the character in the Find what box. Find a match if first 4 numbers are the same. May 12, 2025 · The Wildcards: Asterisk (*) and Question Mark (?) There are two wildcards in Excel, and knowing their purpose is crucial to understanding how wildcards work overall. However, it’s not working in my IF Statement (I have an IF (AND statement that I’m trying to have yield either TRUE or FALSE, which I plan to use to have a pivot table automatically filtered Dec 8, 2023 · For some operations and functions, Excel allows you to use wild card characters. My work-around was to make another row in the lookup table for "Widgets" and put half the products in the first row and the rest in the second. com Aug 30, 2024 · The asterisk wildcard character The first and the most dynamic of all, an asterisk is used as a substitute for any number of characters. The tilde (~) acts as a wildcard break, meaning the asterisk is treated as an asterisk rather than that wildcard. Here, I will show you how to use wildcards in Excel. Asterisk not working By thelisa in forum Excel Programming / VBA / Macros Replies: 10 Last Post: 07-24-2013, 08:01 AM Sep 18, 2012 · The use of AI tools (e. This tip looks at why this occurs and suggests ways to deal with the wrong results. The supported functions can be found here: Excel Wildcard | Exceljet In your case, there are no natural line breaks in the cell, it's just one long string of text that uses "LI x:" to indicate when a new line should begin? One work around would be to use the Find and Replace. but I just want to know where i'm going wrong. The * should be any characters, including no characters. In Excel, you can use three different wildcards to build a formula. Remember Excel’s wildcard characters? If we use wildcard characters with SUMIF, we can sum values using partial criteria and the good news is I want to use asterisk wildcards for a partial search (e. EX: Lookup value= WM22759/16-*2-9 The table may have tow values similar. In this post, you will learn how to use wildcard characters in Excel. Note that wildcards only work with text, not numbers. Aug 23, 2022 · Unfortunately, Excel’s Filter function does not perform partial-match or wildcard searches. I'm following this guide. To match special characters like question mark (?), number sign (#), and asterisk (*), put them in square brackets. Question mark (?) : This wildcard is used to search for any single character. The workaround is to use SEARCH and ISNUMBER. You can use the COUNTIF or SUMPRODUCT functions to count cells with the asterisks. The CHARLIST function gives you matches for one or more characters and can include almost any characters in the ANSI character set, including digits. Get expert tips, ask questions, and share your love for all things Excel. Sep 21, 2024 · Based on your description, if you convert dates from Data format to Text format (Such as using =TEXT(A1,"mm/dd/yyyy") to convert), then your formula will work. Aug 2, 2006 · SUMMARY Microsoft Excel uses the tilde (~) as a marker to indicate that the next character is a literal. A vibrant community of Excel enthusiasts. These can also be used in the Conditional Formatting rules that use the "Only format cells that contain specific text" criteria. For more about using wildcard characters with the Find and Replace features in Excel, see Find or replace text and numbers on a worksheet. Note that the asterisk wildcard would also work in this situation, but the question mark ensures that you replace only one character to avoid any unintentional matches. And for this, I have listed 5 real-life examples which can help you to understand this combination. Tilde (~): This wildcard is an escape character, used preceding the question mark (?) or asterisk mark (*). Mar 26, 2019 · Become an Excel wildcard wizard with our comprehensive guide! Learn how to master wildcard characters in Excel for efficient data analysis. Here we discuss two wildcard characters - Asterisk (*) & Question Mark(?), examples & downloadable excel template. 1 1. In this blog, we will explore how to escape characters in Excel to ensure they are interpreted correctly. With a bit of creativity, you will learn in this article how to perform “Begins With”, “Ends With”, “Contains”, and “Does Not Contain” search criteria, so that you can carry out more complex filtering with your dynamic array formulas. I can not get the advanced filter to produce any output when using wildcard asterisks (*), using a source list that contains numbers and hyphenated number Mar 14, 2023 · The tutorial shows how to make Excel IF statement with wildcard text and get it to work for partial matches. this should have worked the other way around using wildcard. The challenge will be if the imported data to the cell looks like SMOKEDETECTOR or HALLSMOKE which are completely likely. We'll cover the I have set up an advanced filter in Excel. Learn how to use wildcard characters in Excel to save time when working with formulas. Use wildcard characters as comparison criteria for text filters and when you're searching and replacing content. Regards, Clark Anonymous Jan 28, 2020, 10:11 AM Dec 28, 2024 · The COUNTIF function can be very handy when searching a range of cells for values. Because the asterisk is a powerful "wildcard" in Excel, searching for it directly doesn't work the way you might expect. Not all functions can execute Wildcards with Excel Jul 3, 2024 · Alternatives to Application of SUMIFS Function with Wildcard in Excel The SUMIF function can be an alternative option with wildcards if there is only one criterion. Master asterisk symbol in Excel for efficient formulas and data searches. Jan 18, 2023 · The goal in this example is to sum Prices in column C when the Items in column B contain an asterisk (*). Example Wildcard Usage Mar 14, 2023 · When you’re working in large Excel worksheets created from external databases, you’ll find various anomalies and funny characters in between data. To return the first matching record that contains the lookup_value, you need to concatenate an asterisk ("*") to both the start and end of the lookup_value as follows: Jun 23, 2024 · Also, your VLOOKUP() function is not working because, the lookup value you have is a string of words while the keywords is one single word here. Guide to Wildcard In Excel. IF statement with a Wildcard not working, workaround? Hi All I need help. For example, if we use an asterisk with a word as (Ma*), it will represent all the strings that start with the two alphabets “Ma”. Because Excel stores dates as numbers not as text, "*2022" is not recognized as a date. Asterisk (*): This wildcard is used to find any number of characters preceding or following any character. To circumvent it, in the lookup value of your VLOOKUP, you'll want to preceed every "*" with a "~" like in this screenshot. Oct 11, 2019 · It always works like a charm, but, this year I've added two new categories "P-8" and "T-8" (the number 8 can range from 1-8, hence why i'm trying to use the asterisk) and it's not working with the asterisk. Apr 18, 2024 · Explore what does asterisk mean in Excel formula with the practical applications of its usage and the best practice of asterisk. But it will not see "no characters". Jul 6, 2024 · We have discussed 5 methods to use the wildcard in IF statement in Excel. The Asterisk Wildcard: Any Number of Characters The first of the two wildcards in Microsoft Excel is an asterisk, which represents any number of characters, including no characters. It can also be used as a wildcard character in quite a few Excel functions. =XLOOKUP (1,1/COUNTIF (D2,"asterisk"&A1&"asterisk"),B1) Please explain why it doesn't w Apr 2, 2025 · In File Explorer, the asterisk (*) is used as a wildcard to represent any number of characters, but the percentage sign (%) is not a standard wildcard for file searching. But if you want Excel to treat them literally, as the actual characters themselves rather than as wildcards, you need to place a tilde before them. So *A is basically “find me any string that ends in “A”, and *A* says any string that contains “A”. Instead, we can combine the IF function with the COUNTIF function, which does support wildcards. 2 and my current wildcard is {"1. As you can see exploration of similar situation in the thread: Sometimes asterisk wildcard does not work! Hope these can help you. But, when you combine an asterisk, which is a wildcard character, you can get the student’s marks by just using a partial match. Example wildcard usage Wildcards only work Jan 15, 2015 · Because to me your question says you want to count all cells that do NOT match the wildcard string rather than count all cells that do not contain the actual ? or * characters. Question: How many cells have only one asterisk? Nov 4, 2020 · Every day I generate a spreadsheet from our attendance software and it contains A* and T* (the * does not represent a wildcard). Given there are no strings in A1:A4 setting a criteria of * means there are no valid values in A1:A4 hence zero final result. Download our practice workbook for free, and exercise! Guide to VLOOKUP Wildcard. I will in this article demonstrate when you can use the asterisk character. 4 days ago · Learn how to master partial matches in Excel, from traditional wildcard characters to using AI tools for faster, more intuitive data lookups and analysis. Apr 7, 2025 · We explain different types of Excel VLOOKUP wildcard. Feb 12, 2025 · Searching for text in Excel is usually straightforward, but things get tricky when you need to find special characters like the asterisk (*). Dec 11, 2013 · Forum Microsoft Office Application Help - Excel Help forum Excel Formulas & Functions [SOLVED] Wildcard not working in my COUNTIFS The use of AI tools (e. Wildcards Excel functions like SUMIF and SUMIFS support the wildcard characters "?" (any one Aug 12, 2024 · 4 Different Methods to Find and Replace Asterisk (*) Character in Excel. The CHARLIST is enclosed in brackets ( [ ]) and can be used with wildcard May 27, 2020 · In this blog, we would learn what are the wildcard characters and how can you use the wildcard characters in Excel to filter your data or do a partial Vlookup and many more exciting things. But not in all cases. So if you have the data (text): 747, 747-100, 747-200 the formula COUNTIF (range,"747*") will return 2, instead of 3. This guide will walk you through exactly how to find, count, and filter for literal asterisks in your spreadsheets. there's one big catch! If you look at the Help file of Excel it states: You can use wildcard characters, such as an asterisk (*) or a question mark (?), in your search criteria: Use the asterisk to find any string of characters. EX: Row 1= WM22759/16-*02-9 Row 2= WM22759/16-*2-9 Even though the values are close Dec 26, 2012 · Hi, Using the wildcards in Excel can be great but . In this guide, we're going to show you how to use Wildcard criteria in Excel formulas. Apr 1, 2025 · When working with Excel, you might encounter situations where special characters such as the asterisk (*) behave unexpectedly. As I imagine you’ve noted, * is treated a wildcard for string of any length of characters rather than an actual asterisk. May 30, 2025 · Wildcards only work with text, so Excel automatically converts numbers to text when using wildcard patterns. Nov 16, 2022 · SUMIF Wildcards Not Working Hello, I cannot get the SUMIF wildcards working correctly. Explore basics, alternatives, uses, filtration, and troubleshooting. Nov 12, 2025 · In Excel, the asterisk and question mark are usually treated as wildcard characters. As you've discovered, SUBSTITUTE does not support wildcards. Mar 7, 2025 · The asterisk character allows you to multiply numbers and boolean values in an Excel formula. Nov 5, 2014 · I am doing a vlookup. Does anyone know how to not replace everything prior, i. not use * as the wildcard? Jan 9, 2005 · Wildcard Not Working in IF statement I'm having trouble getting the "*" wildcard to work in my IF statement. Mar 25, 2024 · Wildcard characters not working in COUNTIFS function Hi y'all, this was a real brain scratcher for me, I gave up and went to the internet looking for answers. Nov 18, 2014 · Microsoft Excel uses the tilde (~) as a marker to indicate that the next character is a literal. The asterisk symbol denotes the occurrence of zero or more characters, while the question mark symbol signifies the presence of only a single character. Nov 21, 2011 · Hi, dear EXCEL pros: I’ve used asterisk wildcard in formula before and most of the time they worked perfectly well. Jan 6, 2022 · They are useful when working with data sets with similar, but not identical data. Understanding how to wield this little symbol can make your data management tasks a whole lot easier. aea fctborl fpwivs rfzgtd ayz nkswzd yszh vtfsg qtpk cpo wylbmo yokhys lvyhygry dxiq vglif