VLOOKUP and wildcard

[Guest]

I am using the following formula, my problem is that the data that is being
used to look up is as follows: Doe, John and here is where the problem comes
in, what it is looking up is Doe, John T the data that is being looked up has
the persons middle initial and there is nothing I can do to change this.
=VLOOKUP(B13,everyone!$B$2:$E$560,4,FALSE)

Is there a way to use a wildcard with VLOOKUP or is there another way to do
this?
Thanks in advance for your help.

Fishdaddy

 

[R.VENKATARAMAN]

see this url

http://www.bettersolutions.com/excel/121019241833311626101722912107/12101924
1833391122202412121865.htm

I got solution to this

=VLOOKUP("a*",rv,2,FALSE)

mine excel 2000

but I suspect wildcard characters can be appended only to text
==================

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

=VLOOKUP(left(B13,len(B13)-2),everyone!$B$2:$E$560,4,FALSE)

 

[Chris Rogers]

Have you given thought to stripping out the middle initial to populate
a new "everyone" sheet?