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SahmyOgal's avatar
SahmyOgal
Copper Contributor
Sep 11, 2023
Solved

Wildcard characters

Hello,

I just began learning the basics of Excel, and I'm kind of losing it here following this example given on the use of wildcard characters;

 

A question mark matches any single character. An asterisk matches any sequence of characters. If you want to find an actual question mark or asterisk, type a tilde (~) in front of the question mark.

For example, =SUMIFS(A2:A9, B2:B9, "=A*", C2:C9, "To?") will add all instances with name that begin with "To" and ends with a last letter that could vary.

 

My question is, how does criteria1 ("=A*') influence the values to be added in this case?

excel
  • mtarler's avatar
    mtarler
    Sep 12, 2023
    SUMIFS allows you to provide multiple criteria so in this case it will SUM all values in col A (rows 2-9) when the values in column B begin with "A" AND the valus in column C begin with "To" with 1 wildcard letter to follow.
    So to answer the question criteria1 ("=A*") will 'filter' any rows that have a value in column B that doesn't start with "A"

2 Replies

  • mtarler's avatar
    mtarler
    Silver Contributor
    Sep 12, 2023
    SUMIFS allows you to provide multiple criteria so in this case it will SUM all values in col A (rows 2-9) when the values in column B begin with "A" AND the valus in column C begin with "To" with 1 wildcard letter to follow.
    So to answer the question criteria1 ("=A*") will 'filter' any rows that have a value in column B that doesn't start with "A"

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