Generally SEARCH Function will treat the asterisk as Wild Card. Generally *
is used in Search Function for declaring the cell can consist ANY CHARACTER
and ANY NUMBER OF CHARACTER. So in this case use Find function. For making
your result as Boolean ISNUMBER function is used in front of Find Function.

=ISNUMBER(FIND("*",A3))

Place the cursor in A3 cell and extend the selection by holding the shift and
down arrow upto your desired range of A Column, keep in mind that the active
cell should be A3(Active cell will have a white background after selection
also) now goto
FormatConditional FormattingFormula ispaste the below formula
=ISNUMBER(FIND("*",A3))
Click Format and set your desired formatting and give ok. That's it.

Remember to Click Yes, if this post helps!

--------------------
(Ms-Exl-Learner)
--------------------


"Bob Matthews" wrote:

I have some cells which look like the following:-
(they show three values from three other cells)
either 1, 30, 5
or 1, *, 5 say
where the "*" indicates a particularly large value

Now, I am trying to highlight those cells which contain an "*".
I am using SEARCH("*", A3) where A3 is the cell reference
However, all my cells whether they include an "*" or not are highlighted
What am I missing?

Bob


.