In total, there are 3 wildcard characters you can use in Excel. In this article, we're going to show you how to use a wildcard in Excel formula. For example, if you are looking for a string with known ending or beginning, and unknown characters in the middle, you can use wildcard characters to tell Excel to look for all compatible matches. For more information visit supports wildcard characters in formulas to find values that share a simple pattern. Author Introduction:Īnna Ma is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including word recovery and outlook repair software products. Hence, once you encounter such accident, you can apply our powerful tool to recover Excel and get back your information. What’s more, the software in your computer will also be affected. Otherwise your computer will corrupt if it turns out to be a malicious tool. If you are not sure about the source of it, it’s better to delete it immediately. Sometimes, you will accidentally download some unknown software in your computer. And then the cell with the value of “?” will be found. Next click “Find All” or the “Find Next” button.If you want to fine the asterisk, you need to enter the “~” in front of the “*”.

Here is an example of finding the question mark.

And then in the window, input these elements:.

Now if you want to find the asterisk and question mark themselves, you need to use the tilde (~) before the character. Thus, you can find your target easily according to the corresponding column.

And the result will also appear in the window.

Then input the character into the text box:.

Thus, you can use this mark to find the cell. Her number is end with “0002” but you don’t know the year of the beginning. Suppose you want to find Sophia’s job number. You can use the question mark to represent any single character. Therefore, if you want to find the values without knowing the numbers of character, you can use this character. Thus, all the cells with the beginning of “2015” will appear in the window.

Next click the button “Find All” on the bottom.

And then in the “Find and Replace” window, input the elements into the text box:.

Press the shortcut key combo “Ctrl + F” on the keyboard.

In the image below, if you want to find the job numbers with the beginning of “2015”, you can use this character. The asterisk represents any number of characters in Excel. And in the following text, we will introduce them in detail. There are several wildcard characters in Excel. If you need to find certain values without knowing the exact characters in Excel, you can use the wildcard characters. And here we will talk about the usage of wildcard characters in Excel. We will always use the find feature in Excel.

Excel find wildcard