See the reply by PapaDos. It'll work.

It seems like you are inclined to remove/change all those tildes/special
characters. I think that would be a good idea then a basic Vlookup would be
sufficient.

Biff

"Steven Vegeta" wrote in message
...
Sorry Biff - my case is as follow:

I have 2 files - the first file containing the following lines (selected
DVD
titles only), and the other one is a master file which has all titles and
it's stock availability (numbers).

I'm trying to use vlookup to get the stock availability for those selected
DVD titles, but then I found out that vlookup can only return the stock
availability for those titles without a tilde, while I'm 100% sure all
titles
in my first file do exist in the master file.

I just did a test and it seems all titles with those wildcards "~" "*" "?"
are not vlookup-able at all......I may ask my colleagues to change the
titles
then - if I can't get any workaround (apart form renaming the titles) from
experts like you :-)

Many Thanks.

"Biff" wrote:

Still need more info.

I'm matching some titles like
1. New DVD ~ Rocky Series
2. New DVD Boxset 3 discs - First Blood part 1 2 3
3. The lord of the rings ~ The return of the king DVD

What does "matching" mean? "Matching" them to what? Do you want to know
if
an entry is on 2 different lists?

Biff

"Steven Vegeta" wrote in message
...
Thanks Biff - I'm matching some titles like

1. New DVD ~ Rocky Series
2. New DVD Boxset 3 discs - First Blood part 1 2 3
3. The lord of the rings ~ The return of the king DVD

I have 2 files (obtained from my colleague) containing these titles -
and
I
need to get the matching ones.

Many Thanks.
Steven

"Biff" wrote:

Are you looking up specifically just the character ~ or ?, like this:

.........D..........E
1......x...........1
2......y...........2
3......~..........3
4......?...........4

Give some examples of what your lookup_values are and what the titles
are.

Biff

"Steven Vegeta" wrote in
message
...
Hi there,

I've been using vlookup on my tables and just discovered that the
lookup
actually failed when the cell contains one or more tildes "~" (well
never
really use a tilde for it's special purpose before).

Is there any way that Excel's lookup can match my titles with tildes
as
well
? if not then I guess I'll have to replace all my tildes in my cells
to
other
signs......probably hyphens.

Many Thanks in advance!

Steven Vegeta