Wildcards in criteria

Wildcards in criteria: what Excel is actually doing

An asterisk matches any sequence of characters and a question mark matches one character. A tilde escapes a literal wildcard. Wildcards work inside text criteria such as "*late*".

Read this Wildcards in criteria example

Start with the business need: Total records whose reference starts with a recognised prefix. Read each argument, reference, field, or control in the example before copying it into a larger model.

=SUMIF(Code,"INV-*",Amount)

Evidence that your Wildcards in criteria result is trustworthy

A conditional report should add back to a known total when its categories are mutually exclusive and complete.

• Explain how the result supports this task: Total records whose reference starts with a recognised prefix.
• Retain one known-result check and one boundary or exception check.
• Record the source, period, unit, and refresh assumption beside the output.

The Wildcards in criteria mistake to catch

Broad patterns can capture unintended words. For example, *east* can match both East and Northeast.

Your desk challenge for lesson 23

Write one criterion for codes beginning with AB and another for exactly five-character codes ending in 7.

• Separate the measure range from the criteria ranges.
• Make every criteria range the same size.
• Reconcile detailed results to an unconditional control total.