Hi,

I have an Excel Spreadsheet with numbers. Some of the numbers have an
Asterisk besides them.
E.g.
324*

Is there a simple way to delete all Asterisk's in the entire
spreadsheet. (There are no other Asterisk's than these unwanted ones.)

If I use the Find and Replace i.e. search for * and keep the replace
thing blank - it deletes the entire sheet.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot.
O.O.

Try this:

Precede the * with a tilde character:

Edit>Replace
Find what: ~*
Replace with: nothing, leave this blank
Replace All


--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"O. Olson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:2c424a7a-bdd4-4d10-847e-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi,
>
> I have an Excel Spreadsheet with numbers. Some of the numbers have an
> Asterisk besides them.
> E.g.
> 324*
>
> Is there a simple way to delete all Asterisk's in the entire
> spreadsheet. (There are no other Asterisk's than these unwanted ones.)
>
> If I use the Find and Replace i.e. search for * and keep the replace
> thing blank - it deletes the entire sheet.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks a lot.
> O.O.

Thanks Biff. This works for me. By the way - what does the tilde
character do/mean i.e. what is its significance.

Regards,
O.O.

On Mar 7, 8:13 pm, "T. Valko" <biffinp...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Try this:
>
> Precede the * with a tilde character:
>
> Edit>Replace
> Find what: ~*
> Replace with: nothing, leave this blank
> Replace All
>
> --
> Biff
> Microsoft Excel MVP

In some uses the * is a wildcard character and Find/Replace is one of those
uses. The tilde character tells Excel that in this use the * is not a
wildcard but just a regular character.


--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"O. Olson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:5063fa21-3e2f-44e4-b434-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thanks Biff. This works for me. By the way - what does the tilde
> character do/mean i.e. what is its significance.
>
> Regards,
> O.O.
>
> On Mar 7, 8:13 pm, "T. Valko" <biffinp...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Try this:
>>
>> Precede the * with a tilde character:
>>
>> Edit>Replace
>> Find what: ~*
>> Replace with: nothing, leave this blank
>> Replace All
>>
>> --
>> Biff
>> Microsoft Excel MVP

Thanks Biff for your explanation. This is something I did not know.
Regards,
Rio

On Mar 8, 11:47 am, "T. Valko" <biffinp...@comcast.net> wrote:
> In some uses the * is a wildcard character and Find/Replace is one of those
> uses. The tilde character tells Excel that in this use the * is not a
> wildcard but just a regular character.
>
> --
> Biff
> Microsoft Excel MVP
>

You're welcome!

That's why when you used just the * as the Find criteria Excel "deleted" the
entire sheet of data.

It interpreted that to mean Find *anything* and replace it with nothing.

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"O. Olson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:03794372-6827-48f6-b65f-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Thanks Biff for your explanation. This is something I did not know.
> Regards,
> Rio
>
> On Mar 8, 11:47 am, "T. Valko" <biffinp...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> In some uses the * is a wildcard character and Find/Replace is one of
>> those
>> uses. The tilde character tells Excel that in this use the * is not a
>> wildcard but just a regular character.
>>
>> --
>> Biff
>> Microsoft Excel MVP
>>

Sorry, I did not notice that you had posted.

Thanks for your explanation. I figured out that Excel is taking my *
as a wild card - but I was looking for an option to enable or disable
the wild cards like we have in the MS Word Find dialog.

Thanks again.
O.O.


On Mar 8, 2:00 pm, "T. Valko" <biffinp...@comcast.net> wrote:
> You're welcome!
>
> That's why when you used just the * as the Find criteria Excel "deleted" the
> entire sheet of data.
>
> It interpreted that to mean Find *anything* and replace it with nothing.
>
> --
> Biff
> Microsoft Excel MVP

No option in Excel like that. All you can do is as I described, preceed the
wildcard with a tilde. This applies to the ? (question mark) and ~ (tilde)
wildcards as well.

~?
~~

--
Biff
Microsoft Excel MVP


"O. Olson" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:f37cd149-9a35-4873-ba59-(E-Mail Removed)...
> Sorry, I did not notice that you had posted.
>
> Thanks for your explanation. I figured out that Excel is taking my *
> as a wild card - but I was looking for an option to enable or disable
> the wild cards like we have in the MS Word Find dialog.
>
> Thanks again.
> O.O.
>
>
> On Mar 8, 2:00 pm, "T. Valko" <biffinp...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> You're welcome!
>>
>> That's why when you used just the * as the Find criteria Excel "deleted"
>> the
>> entire sheet of data.
>>
>> It interpreted that to mean Find *anything* and replace it with nothing.
>>
>> --
>> Biff
>> Microsoft Excel MVP