Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: Searching for Wildcards.
You know that you can use Excel's Find and Replace feature to locate information in your workbooks. (Just press Ctrl+F or Ctrl+H to pull up the dialog box.) You may even know that you can use question marks (?) and asterisks (*) as wildcard characters, just as you would at a DOS command prompt. What if you want to search for a cell that actually contains an asterisk or a question mark, however?
Excel allows you to search for special characters by preceding the character with the tilde (~). In other words, if you want to search for an asterisk, you would actually search for ~*. If you wanted to search for the question mark, you would search for ~? instead.
Finally, if you wanted to search for the tilde character, you would actually search for ~~. In each instance, the leading tilde informs Excel that the following character should be translated as an actual character, and not as a special wildcard character.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (2333) applies to Microsoft Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. You can find a version of this tip for the ribbon interface of Excel (Excel 2007 and later) here: Searching for Wildcards.
Create Custom Apps with VBA! Discover how to extend the capabilities of Office 2013 (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Access) with VBA programming, using it for writing macros, automating Office applications, and creating custom applications. Check out Mastering VBA for Office 2013 today!
Searching for information in an Excel worksheet generally goes very smoothly. There can be times, however, when the ...
Discover MoreDo you often want to search through a worksheet by column rather than by row? Excel defaults to searching by row, of ...
Discover MoreWhen you use Find and Replace, Excel normally looks through all the cells in a worksheet. You may want to limit the ...
Discover MoreFREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
2015-10-15 13:45:48
Adalberto
YongBoo,
You can try a macro for search and replace (or remove) any cell containning chars with ascii value greater than, for example, 167.
Public Function cuttrash(r As Range)
lr = Len(r.Value)
For c = 1 To lr
at = Asc(Mid$(r.Value, c, 1))
If at > 165 Then
cuttrash = ""
Exit Function
End If
Next
cuttrash = r.Value
End Function
2014-11-24 12:47:30
Jiehan
In response to yongboo:
Find ~*, and replace with nothing.
2014-08-16 09:22:29
@ yongboo
Ctrl-H to Find & Replace.
In Find What box enter ~*???? (with ? for each character after * you wish to remove - if you put more than you need then no problem)
Leave Replace With box empty
Hit Replace ALL
2014-08-15 14:16:12
yongboo
I'm a teacher working on some language data on Excel. I'm trying to remove every occurrence of texts followed by '*'. For example, I have multiple cells that are like this.
출연하다
*나오다
So I'm trying to get rid of '*나오다' from this particular cell, and other cells that have a similar combination. But the actual texts after '*' are different from cell to cell.
How do I do that?
Thank you so very much for any help!!
Got a version of Excel that uses the menu interface (Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2002, or Excel 2003)? This site is for you! If you use a later version of Excel, visit our ExcelTips site focusing on the ribbon interface.
FREE SERVICE: Get tips like this every week in ExcelTips, a free productivity newsletter. Enter your address and click "Subscribe."
Copyright © 2020 Sharon Parq Associates, Inc.
Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003. If you are using a later version (Excel 2007 or later), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for later versions of Excel, click here: 
Comments