Trying to find and replace *

  • Thread starter Thread starter Donna
  • Start date Start date
D

Donna

In my cells that contain partial sentences there are * used. I tried to use
find and replace to remove them but it will not recognize them. I assume
this is because this is a Microsoft multiplication operator. Is there a way
around this?
Donna
 
Precede the * with a tilde ~

find what: ~*

* is itself generally used as a "wildcard" in a search so needs the tilde to
tell Excel it is not.

Same if you were looking for ? which is also a wildcard.

You would look for ~?


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
 
Donna,
It's not because it's the multiplication symbol. Instead it is because it
is a "wildcard" that means "match anything in this position in my search
string". Another wildcard character is the question mark.

To search for an * in cells, precede it with the ~ (tilde) symbol, as ~*
will find an * in your entries. The ~ tells the Find function to take the
next character as a literal to find.

Hope this helps.
 
Just to add (for the ~~):

If you want to replace an asterisk character, use ~* in the from string.
If you want to replace a question mark, use ~? in the from string.
If you want to replace a tilde (~), use ~~ in the from string.
 

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