as already mentioned, the asterisk is the wildcard for any number of
characters.

if you want specifically to check a space followed by four characters use
LIKE " ????"
or
for space and four digits
LIKE " ####"

HELP on LIKE gives you all these

"Fred Holmes" wrote in message
...
Excel 2000

How do I get the following formula:

If ActiveCell.Offset(0, -4).Formula = " *" Then

to test if the formula/value (hard coded) in the cell is of the form

" ####"

(two spaces followed by four of any digits)?

Two spaces followed by anything would be good enough at present. The
above code produces false on " 1234" when I think it ought to produce
true. Is "*" usable as a wild card?

TIA

Fred Holmes