How to use replace characters in excel?

Question

I'm having trouble trying to use replace characters in MS excel. Help says * and ? can both replace characters, but if I try using them in IF, I don't get correct results. For example:

A1="something"
=IF(A1="*mething";"yes";"no")

I always get no... How to use * correctly?

Answer 1

wildcards don't work with comparison operators like =

To achieve what you want you can use COUNTIF which does accept wildcards, i.e.

=IF(COUNTIF(A1;"*mething")>0;"yes";"no")

or RIGHT function like

=IF(RIGHT(A1;7)="mething";"yes";"no")

Answer 2

Wildcards cannot be used in this context. Use something like:

=IF(ISERROR(FIND("mething",A1)),"No","Yes")