Hi, I'm trying to perform a search in a worksheet containing wildcard
characters (? and *) and I need to be able to find cells with the wildcard
characters themselves, e.g.
A1: What is your name?
A2: Your rating is *****
A3: This cell contains no wildcards.

If I press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "?", it matches any single character
(rather than the ? character in cell A1). If I search for "*", it matches
any cell with values in (rather than the any of 5 stars in cell A2).

Is there a way of disabling wildcard matching or "escaping" the wildcard
characters themselves?

If you want to find an actual question mark or asterisk, type a tilde (~)
before the character.

--
paul

remove nospam for email addy!



"Dino" wrote:

Hi, I'm trying to perform a search in a worksheet containing wildcard
characters (? and *) and I need to be able to find cells with the wildcard
characters themselves, e.g.
A1: What is your name?
A2: Your rating is *****
A3: This cell contains no wildcards.

If I press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "?", it matches any single character
(rather than the ? character in cell A1). If I search for "*", it matches
any cell with values in (rather than the any of 5 stars in cell A2).

Is there a way of disabling wildcard matching or "escaping" the wildcard
characters themselves?

Use ~* and ~? to search

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel

"Dino" wrote in message ...
| Hi, I'm trying to perform a search in a worksheet containing wildcard
| characters (? and *) and I need to be able to find cells with the wildcard
| characters themselves, e.g.
| A1: What is your name?
| A2: Your rating is *****
| A3: This cell contains no wildcards.
|
| If I press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "?", it matches any single character
| (rather than the ? character in cell A1). If I search for "*", it matches
| any cell with values in (rather than the any of 5 stars in cell A2).
|
| Is there a way of disabling wildcard matching or "escaping" the wildcard
| characters themselves?

This raises a new question - how do I search for "~"? Do I use "~~"?

Thanks for the quick response, either way.

"Niek Otten" wrote:

Use ~* and ~? to search

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel

"Dino" wrote in message ...
| Hi, I'm trying to perform a search in a worksheet containing wildcard
| characters (? and *) and I need to be able to find cells with the wildcard
| characters themselves, e.g.
| A1: What is your name?
| A2: Your rating is *****
| A3: This cell contains no wildcards.
|
| If I press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "?", it matches any single character
| (rather than the ? character in cell A1). If I search for "*", it matches
| any cell with values in (rather than the any of 5 stars in cell A2).
|
| Is there a way of disabling wildcard matching or "escaping" the wildcard
| characters themselves?

You got it!:)

--
Regards |:)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

"Dino" wrote in message
...
This raises a new question - how do I search for "~"? Do I use "~~"?

Thanks for the quick response, either way.

"Niek Otten" wrote:

Use ~* and ~? to search

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel

"Dino" wrote in message
...
| Hi, I'm trying to perform a search in a worksheet containing wildcard
| characters (? and *) and I need to be able to find cells with the
wildcard
| characters themselves, e.g.
| A1: What is your name?
| A2: Your rating is *****
| A3: This cell contains no wildcards.
|
| If I press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "?", it matches any single
character
| (rather than the ? character in cell A1). If I search for "*", it
matches
| any cell with values in (rather than the any of 5 stars in cell A2).
|
| Is there a way of disabling wildcard matching or "escaping" the
wildcard
| characters themselves?

Yep.

(But it would have been quicker to test it yourself.)

Dino wrote:

This raises a new question - how do I search for "~"? Do I use "~~"?

Thanks for the quick response, either way.

"Niek Otten" wrote:

Use ~* and ~? to search

--
Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel

"Dino" wrote in message ...
| Hi, I'm trying to perform a search in a worksheet containing wildcard
| characters (? and *) and I need to be able to find cells with the wildcard
| characters themselves, e.g.
| A1: What is your name?
| A2: Your rating is *****
| A3: This cell contains no wildcards.
|
| If I press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "?", it matches any single character
| (rather than the ? character in cell A1). If I search for "*", it matches
| any cell with values in (rather than the any of 5 stars in cell A2).
|
| Is there a way of disabling wildcard matching or "escaping" the wildcard
| characters themselves?




--

Dave Peterson

Ah yes, but this is supposed to act as an archive of questions - if I ask and
someone answers this only needs to be done once ;)

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

Yep.

(But it would have been quicker to test it yourself.)

Yes, but someone asked the same thing yesterday!

Pete

Dino wrote:
Ah yes, but this is supposed to act as an archive of questions - if I ask and
someone answers this only needs to be done once ;)

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

Yep.

(But it would have been quicker to test it yourself.)

Or you could have tested, then posted your results.

Then the archives would have been complete and you still would know the answer
<g.

Dino wrote:

Ah yes, but this is supposed to act as an archive of questions - if I ask and
someone answers this only needs to be done once ;)

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

Yep.

(But it would have been quicker to test it yourself.)

--

Dave Peterson