What are the two common wildcard characters that Excel recognizes? - ProProfs Discuss
Advertisement

What are the two common wildcard characters that Excel recognizes?

Asked by Coulter, Last updated: Apr 05, 2024

+ Answer
Request
Question menu
Vote up Vote down

3 Answers

L. Brett

L. Brett

Ask me anything!

L. Brett
L. Brett, Sales Manager, MBA, Detroit

Answered May 29, 2019

Excel is a program on the computer to organize numbers on a spreadsheet. There are many different features in Excel, including sorting and using formulas to create numbers into a large number of cells both in the rows and columns. However, the user must use specific symbols to create these formulas. The user must memorize or know where to find these symbols and equations.

The more that a user uses Excel, the more this user will learn the formulas. There are two familiar wildcard characters that Excel recognizes. These are the asterisk and a question mark. If you want Excel to know that you want to create a formula in a cell, then you type in the equal signs.

upvote downvote
Reply 

M. Kennedy

M. Kennedy

M. Kennedy
M. Kennedy, Web Content Writer, Denver

Answered Mar 29, 2019

A wildcard is a very useful inclusion to the character set in computing. It allows for a character to vary amongst several options. For instance, if you had a word with one letter missing and you did not know what that was - such as in the case of a surname - you could put a wildcard character and this would allow for completion despite the missing letter. The wildcard characters are normally * but sometimes ?

upvote downvote
Reply 

John Smith

John Smith

John Smith
John Smith

Answered Oct 27, 2016

* and ?
upvote downvote
Reply 

Advertisement
Advertisement
Search for Google images Google Image Icon
Select a recommended image
Upload from your computer Loader
Image Preview
Search for Google images Google Image Icon
Select a recommended image
Upload from your computer Loader
Image Preview
Search for Google images Google Image Icon
Select a recommended image
Upload from your computer Loader

Email Sent
We have sent an email to your address "" with instructions to reset your password.