I have lot of * along with other data. How can i replace * with blanks

Since an asterisk (*) is a wildcard, when you attempt to perform a find and
replace operation to find all * and replace it with another character, excel
will find everything, not just the asterisk characters.

In order to find these special characters, you need to add a tilde (~) in
front of the special character.

For example, to find all asterisks, input this into the find box:

~*

The tilde is located above the Tab key.

If you wanted to find and replace tilde characters, then you would enter:

HTH,
Paul



--

"leo" wrote in message
...
I have lot of * along with other data. How can i replace * with blanks

Excel can use wildcards in some functions and operations (edit|find, for
example).

* for any characters
? for any single character
~ as an "escape" character to indicate that the next * or ? should be treated as
an asterisk or question mark--not as wild cards.

So to find an asterisk, you use: ~*
to find a question mark, you use: ~?
to find a tilde, you use: ~~

leo wrote:

I have lot of * along with other data. How can i replace * with blanks

--

Dave Peterson

In the FIND box, type in ~*

The tilde ~ character instructs Excel to treat whatever character follows it
as literal rather than its special meaning. So *, ? and ~ can be found by
typing ~*, ~? and ~~.

HTH
Elkar


"leo" wrote:

I have lot of * along with other data. How can i replace * with blanks

Use Find and Replace...

Enter ~* in the find box click on Replace All

You can enter a BLANK in the Replace box if you want to replace 'THI*S' with
'TH S'

"leo" wrote:

I have lot of * along with other data. How can i replace * with blanks

Assuming the * are in cells by themselves.

EditReplace

what: ~*

with: nothing

Make sure options are set to "Match whole cell contents"

Replace all.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

On Thu, 5 Feb 2009 15:00:15 -0800, leo
wrote:

I have lot of * along with other data. How can i replace * with blanks