In Excel, the wild card is *, not %. * will match any number of characters.
A single character is ?.

However, the If function does not support wild cards. But other functions
like Countif do. So try:
=if(countif(a1,"*her*")0,"her",0)

I'm also willing to bet you'd be happier with a blank cell than zero, if so,
use:
=if(countif(a1,"*her*")0,"her","")

Regards,
Fred

"Shaun" wrote in message
...
Can anyone tell me how to use some logic to return a value from a partial
cell reference? Here is what I have tried, as you can guess they didnt
work.
Is there a wild card that could be put before and after in the formula?
(That
is what the % was all about in my first attempt.) note column B is where i
am
trying to return the value from the formula.

=if(a1=%her%,€�her€�,0) I also tried€¦ =if(a1=€�her€�,€�her€�,0)
A B
1 t-shirt small her black her
2 t-shirt med him black
3 t-shirt med her black her