Perform Inexact Searches In Excel


If you have a large worksheet with a lot of data then finding exactly what you are looking for can be problematic.

The Excel Find And Replace dialog box is the most useful tool for this job.

Are you using it fully? Most users aren’t. It has some cool functions to get Excel to take you to the next level and working even faster and smarter.

One of my favorites is using wild card searches for those times you need to find something you are not sure of the spelling of or all name records that begin with a combination of letters

The find and replace can take two wild card characters

? matches any single character
* matches and number of characters

They also work with numbers so if you wanted to search for all cells that begin with 88 then use 88* and all will be located.

Another example? if you search for 9?9 locates all three digit entries that begin and end with a 9.

This really is a handy tool to have in your Excel toolbox.

Other Excel Tips You Might Like.

1. Goodbye To Carriage Returns in a csv file

2. Change The Standard Font In Your Excel Workbooks

3. Data Validation To Control User Data Entry

Barbara

Barbara is an experienced data analyst with over 20 years of experience. Author of the How To Excel At Excel Top 50 Excel tips Ebook, YouTuber and Excel Blogger.

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