Your mistake was to change the Autofilter condition from "Equals" (which is,
I think, the default) to "Contains".
"Vegetables" contains "table" but it does not equal "table".
--
David Biddulph

"Suzanne" wrote in message
...
Thank you! I think that's what I've been doing and it doesn't work for me.
Here is what I did:
Selected the column heading row,
turned on autofilter,
selected Custom from the drop down box,
selected Contains, typed in the word table,
selected Or,
selected Contains, typed in the word tables.
Doing it this way, I get table and tables but I also get tablet, tablets
and
vegetables. Can you tell me what am I doing wrong... please!
--
Suzanne


"M Scott" wrote:

Select column heading row and turn on autofilter. On the column choose
Custom
Filter from the drop down box.

Value = TABLE
OR
Value = TABLES

If you happen to put TABLE*, TABLET would be included.
"Suzanne" wrote:

Hi,
Can anyone please tell me how to filter a column of text for exact
words in
a column which contains over 25,000 descriptions of items. For example,
I
would like to see only the ones which contain the exact words TABLE or
TABLES
and not other words like TABLET or VEGETABLE, etc. I am using Excel
2003.
I have been searching all day and I'm not proud to say I still can't
figure
it out!