Using Wildcard in Excel - Excel Tips and Tricks

Discover how you can use widlcard in Excel to get first name or last name.

In Excel, the asterisk symbol (*) is called a wildcard character. Wildcard characters are used as placeholders to match one or more characters in a text string.


When you use the "Find and Replace" function in Excel to find " *" (space followed by an asterisk), it will find all occurrences of that combination of characters after space, and replace them with whatever you specify, in this case a blank. Hence last name is retained.

Keep First Name
1) Ctrl+H
2) Find what as " *" (without double quotes)
3) Replace with as BLANK
4) Replace All

On the other hand, when you use the "Find and Replace" function in Excel to find "* " (asterisk followed by a space), it will find all occurrences of that combination of characters before the last space, and replace them with whatever you specify, in this case a blank as well. Hence last name is retained.

Keep Last Name
1) Ctrl+H
2) Find what as "* " (without double quotes)
3) Replace with as BLANK
4) Replace All

Just as a demo, if you use the "Find and Replace" function in Excel to find "*" (no spaces), everything is replaced with whatever you specify, in this case a blank as well.


Find and Replace,