Replacing all asterisks in Excel 2003 spreadsheet

[JoeP]

I am working on a spreadsheet that I have pulled data from another source.
Some of the cells contain double asterisks ** and other cells contain the
data that I want to work with.
I wanted to eliminate the ** so I tried to Replace All the ** with a space,
but when I do this all my data disappears.
Is there a way to eliminate the ** only and not the other data?
Thanks.

 

[Max]

Try
Find what: ~**
Replace with: (nothing)
[instead of Find what: ** ]

aha? hit the YES below
--
Max
Singapore
http://savefile.com/projects/236895
Downloads:27,000 Files:200 Subscribers:70
xdemechanik

 

[Pete_UK]

The asterisk is a wildcard character staning for all characters.

If you want to replace an asterisk, yo must precede it with the tilde
symbol, ~

ie: Find what ~*
Replace with leave blank
Click Replace All

Hope this helps.

Pete

 

[Dave Peterson]

Just to add to the other replies...

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.