Excel IF statement for partial text match (wildcard)

Trying to build an IF statement with wildcard text, but it fails every time? The problem is not in your formula but in the function itself - Excel IF does not support wildcard characters. However, there is a way to get it to work for partial text match, and this tutorial will teach you how.

Whenever you want to perform partial or fuzzy matching in Excel, the most obvious solution is to use wildcards. But what if a specific function that you need to use does not support wildcards characters? Sadly, Excel IF is one of such functions. This is especially disappointing considering that other "conditional" functions such as COUNTIF, SUMIF, and AVERAGEIFS work with wildcards perfectly well.

Luckily, it is not the obstacle that can stop a creative Excel user :) By combining IF with other functions, you can force it to evaluate a partial match and get a nice alternative to an Excel IF wildcard formula.

Why Excel IF function with wildcard not working

In the sample table below, supposing you want to check whether the IDs in the first column contain the letter "A". If found - display "Yes" in column B, if not - display "No".

It seems like including wildcard text in the logical test would be an easy solution:

=IF(A2="*a*","Yes", "No")

But regrettably it does not work. The formula returns "No" for all the cells, even those that contain "A":
Excel IF function with wildcard not working

Why does a wildcard IF statement fail? From all appearances, Excel doesn't recognize wildcards used with an equal sign or other logical operators. Taking a closer look at the list of functions supporting wildcards, you will notice that their syntax assumes a wildcard text to appear directly in an argument like this:

=COUNTIF(A2:A10, "*a*")

Excel IF contains partial text

Now that you know the reason why a wildcard IF formula fails, let's try to figure out how to get it to work. For this, we'll simply embed a function that accepts wildcards in the logical test of IF, namely the COUNTIF function:

IF(COUNTIF(cell, "*text*"), value_if_true, value_if_false)

With this approach, IF has no problem with understanding wildcards and flawlessly identifies the cells that contain either "A" or "a" (since COUNTIF is not case-sensitive):

=IF(COUNTIF(A2, "*a*"),"Yes", "No")

This formula goes to B2, or any other cell in row 2, and then you can drag it down to as many cells as needed:
Excel IF statement with wildcard text

This solution can also be used to locate strings of a specific pattern. Assuming only the IDs consisting of 2 groups of 2 characters separated with a hyphen are valid, you can use the "??-??" wildcard string to identify them:

=IF(COUNTIF(A2, "??-??"), "Valid", "")
IF wildcard formula to identify strings of a specific pattern

How this formula works:

For the logical test of IF, we use the COUNTIF function that counts the number of cells matching the specified wildcard string. Since the criteria range is a single cell (A2), the result is always 1 (match is found) or 0 (match is not found). Given that 1 equates to TRUE and 0 to FALSE, the formula returns "Valid" (value_if_true) when the count is 1 and an empty string (value_if_false) when the count is 0.

IF ISNUMBER SEARCH formula for partial matches

Another way to force Excel IF to work for partial text match is to include either the FIND or SEARCH function in the logical test. The difference is that FIND is case-sensitive while SEARCH is not.

So, depending on whether you want to treat lowercase and uppercase as the same or different characters, one of these formulas will work a treat:

Case-insensitive formula for partial match:

IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("text", cell)), value_if_true, value_if_false)

Case-sensitive formula for partial match:

IF(ISNUMBER(FIND("text", cell)), value_if_true, value_if_false)

As both functions are designed to perform a "cell contains" type of match, wildcards aren't really needed in this case.

For example, to detect IDs containing "A" or "a", the formula is:

=IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("A", A2)), "Yes", "No")

To only search for a capital "A" and ignore "a", the formula is:

=IF(ISNUMBER(FIND("A", A2)), "Yes", "No")

In B6 in the screenshot below, you can observe the difference in the result:
Excel IF formula for partial matches

How this formula works:

At the heart of the formula, there is a combination of ISNUMBER and SEARCH (or FIND):

ISNUMBER(SEARCH("A", A2))

The SEARCH function looks for the specified text ("A" in this example) and returns its position within a string in A2. If the text is not found, a #VALUE error is returned. As both SEARCH and FIND are designed to perform a "cell contains" type of match, wildcards aren't really needed in this case.

The ISNUMBER function converts a number to TRUE and any other value including error to FALSE. The logical value goes directly to the logical test of IF. In our case, A2 contains "A", so ISNUMBER returns TRUE:

IF(TRUE, "Yes", "No")

As the result, IF returns the value set for the value_if_true argument, which is "Yes".

Excel IF OR statement with wildcards

Need to identify cells that contain one of wildcard text strings? In this case, you can combine the classic IF OR statement with the COUNTIF or ISNUMBER SEARCH formula discussed above.

For example, to search for "aa" OR "bb" in A2 ignoring the letter case and return "Yes" if either is found, use one of these formulas:

=IF(OR(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("aa", A2)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("bb", A2))), "Yes", "")

or

=IF(OR(COUNTIF(A2, "*aa*"), COUNTIF(A2, "*bb*")), "Yes", "")

Adding up two COUNTIF functions will also work. In this case, the plus sign works like the OR operator:

=IF(COUNTIF(A3, "*aa*") + COUNTIF(A3, "*bb*"), "Yes", "")

Instead of hardcoding wildcard strings in the formula, you can input them in separate cells, say D2 and F2, as shown in the screenshot below. Please notice that these cell references are locked with the $ sign so that the formula copies correctly to the below cells:

=IF(OR(COUNTIF(A2, "*"&$D$2&"*"), COUNTIF(A2, "*"&$F$2&"*")), "Yes", "")
Excel IF OR statement with wildcards

The above formulas work well for 2 partial matches, but if you are searching for 3 or more, they would become too lengthy. In this case, it stands to reason to approach the task differently:

Supply multiple substrings to the SEARCH function in an array constant, count the returned numbers, and check if the result is greater than zero (which would mean that at least one of the substrings if found):

=IF(COUNT(SEARCH({"aa","bb"}, A2))>0, "Yes", "")

This way, you will get exactly the same result with a more compact formula:
A more compact alternative to Excel IF OR wildcard formula

Excel IF AND formula with wildcards

When you want to check if a cell contains two or more different substrings, the easiest way is to use the COUNTIFS function with wildcards for the logical test.

Supposing you want to locate cells in column A that contain both "b" AND "2". To have it done, use "*b*" and "*2*" for COUNTIFS's criteria and A2 for the criteria range:

=IF(COUNTIFS(A2, "*b*", A2, "*2*"), "Yes", "")

Another way is to use the IF AND formula together with ISNUMBER SEARCH:

=IF(AND(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("b", A2)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("2", A2))), "Yes", "")

Though we do not include any wildcard characters in this formula, it does work like searching for two wildcard strings ("*b*" and "*2*") in the same cell.

Of course, nothing prevents you from entering the search values in predefined cells, D2 and F2 in our case, and supplying the cell references to the formula:

=IF(AND(ISNUMBER(SEARCH($D$2, A2)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH($F$2, A2))), "Yes", "")
Excel IF AND formula with wildcards

If you prefer using more compact formulas wherever possible, then you may better like the array constant approach. The IF COUNT SEARCH formula is very much like in the previous example, but because this time both substrings must appear in A2, we check if the count is equal to 2:

=IF(COUNT(SEARCH({"b","2"}, A2))=2, "Yes", "")
An alternative to the IF AND formula with wildcards

These are the main methods of using wildcard in IF statement in Excel. If you know any other solutions, other users will certainly appreciate if you share your experience in comments. I thank you for reading and hope to see you on our blog next week!

Practice workbook for download

Excel IF wildcard formula examples (.xlsx file)

Table of contents

92 comments

  1. Hello!

    I wonder if what I'm trying to do is possible. And if it is, how would I go about it.

    I have 2 Excel sheets:
    Sheet #1 contains a list of names (example: Joe, Abby, George)
    Sheet #2, on column A has names with age (example: A1: Joe 45, A2: Milton 60, A3: Abby 36, A4: Abby 50). I want column B on Sheet #2 to mark "yes" if the column A contains a name from Sheet #1. Example: B1 would be "yes" since A1 (Joe 45) has "Joe", which is on Sheet #1. B2 would be "no" because the name "Milton" is not on Sheet #1. B3 & B4 would be "yes" because it contains "Abby" which appears on Sheet #1.

    The problem I'm running into is Sheet #1 doesn't contain the age, so it won't be exact match.

    I hope that make sense. Any help is appreciated!

  2. Hi!

    I hope you can help me with a formula. I need to look in column D (D1:D50) - scanned in SKUs of variable length and alphanumeric Ex)
    D1: 58997630093114772B688
    D2: 6111008863012210046, etc... to see if any of the values in column H (H1:H27) - a list of partial SKUs Ex)
    H1: 6300
    H2: 6301
    H3: 6804
    H4: 6903, etc....
    match. If so, I need to return the value found plus the remaining characters in column A (A1:A50). Using my examples, I would want:
    A1: 630093114772B688
    A2: 63012210046 and so on.

    I have other criteria (IF, AND, OR) that I can figure out. EX) Look at the first 2 characters, if it is a number followed by a letter, then return the entire string; and look at the first digit, if it is a 6 AND the string is 39 characters long or 44 characters long, only return the last 20 characters. I was thinking a TEXTJOIN formula, but gets too complicated when I try to include more if statements. Is this even possible? I feel like it should be.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.
    Thank you!

    Emily

  3. Would this formula be effective for this scenario:

    I have multiple bank addenda and each of them contain an invoice number within the text. I would like to create a formula that would return "Yes" if the bank addenda contains any of the invoice numbers that I have in a list.

    Thank you for any help you can provide.

    • Hello Sissy!
      You can use the recommendations in the article above if you are looking for a partial match between two values. If you need to find a partial match in a list of values, I recommend using these instructions: MATCH formula with wildcards.
      To check if a match is found, use the ISNUMBER function. For example:

      =IF(ISNUMBER(MATCH("*"&"invoice number"&"*",A1:A10,0)),"Yes","")

  4. You have a lot of great information here.
    Could you help me sort out the best way of writing a formula to calculate a value in one cell based a value in another cell. For instance, I am trying to calculate a percent of service utilization based on the type of service that was done. The services are named "BPM, CPM, 500 HR, 500 HR PM, VACUUM TRAILER BPM, AND VACUUM TRAILER CPM. All of the services containing BPM would need to base the calculation on 250, all of the service containing 500 HR would need to base their calculations on 500, and all of the services containing CPM would have to base their calculation on 1000. What I initially wrote was "=IF(D2="*BPM*", Q2=(250-O2)/250, IF(D2="*HR*", Q2=(500-O2)/500, IF(D2="*CPM*", Q2=(1000-O2)/1000,"")))". This came back as a false and left the cell blank but shouldn't have if I wrote it correctly because the referenced cell contains BPM.
    Could you tell me where I made the mistake or mistakes?

    • Hello John!
      If you read the article above carefully, you will see that you cannot determine a partial match by this method. Use the method suggested in the article above.
      Instead of D2="*BPM*", use COUNTIF(D2,"*BPM*").
      For example:

      =IF(COUNTIF(D2,"*BPM*"),(250-O2)/250,IF(COUNTIF(D2,"*HR*"),(500-O2)/500,""))

      To determine if text strings are a partial match, you can also use these guidelines: How to find substring in Excel
      Instead of D2="*BPM*", use ISNUMBER(SEARCH("BPM",D2)).
      The formula might look as follows:

      =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("BPM",D2)),(250-O2)/250,IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("HR",D2)),(500-O2)/500,""))

      If you want to write the calculated value in cell Q2, you do not need to specify this cell in the formula. Please read this manual carefully: Nested IF in Excel – formula with multiple conditions.

      • Thank you! That was what I was missing. I appreciate your assistance and prompt response!

        • That worked great for the hour based readings because I could search for text to calculate the formula. However, I have multiple conditions for the mileage based service intervals.

          For example. I tried =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(6000,D4),(6000-O4)/6000,IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(15000,D4),(15000-O4)/15000,IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(50000,D4),(50000-O4)/50000,IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(5000,D4),(5000-O4)/5000,IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(8000,D4),(8000-O4)/8000),IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(3500,D4),(3500-O4)/3500),"")))

          I also tried CountIF. Both formulas give a window stating " You've entered too many arguments for this function. Is there another function I can use. Did I enter it incorrectly?

          D4 in this case contains the mileage based service interval such as "BPM 6000", "CPM 50000", "Brake check/ 15000", "BPM 3500", OR "BPM 8000". O4 will be where it shows the percentage of the service interval utilized so far.

          • I'm sorry, I mis stated what O4 is. O4 is the miles until due. Q4 is where the formula is input to show the percentage of the service interval utilized so far.

            • Hi! I don't really understand what you want to do, and I can't check your formula as I don't have your data. But the nested IF formula might look like this:

              =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(6000,D4)),(6000-O4)/6000, IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(15000,D4)),(15000-O4)/15000, IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(50000,D4)),(50000-O4)/50000, IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(5000,D4)),(5000-O4)/5000, IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(8000,D4)),(8000-O4)/8000, IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH(3500,D4)),(3500-O4)/3500,""))))))

              Pay attention to the following paragraph of the article above: IF ISNUMBER SEARCH formula for partial matches. Also properly write nested conditions as described in this guide: Nested IF in Excel – formula with multiple conditions.

              • Thanks again Alexander. It appears I had not put in enough parentheses.

  5. This was soo helpful. I tried so many variations of the SUMIF(S) formula in an attempt to include multiple criteria from the same column in my formula. I eventually came to the thought, can i do a partial match as my data had leading letters and varying numbers. I spent two hours searching the right variation of the IF function! When I was able to apply this solution, I almost broke the desk!! Thank you so much!

  6. i have a address of multiple cities in excel cells consisting around 140 city names, I want to just drag the city name from every cell there are around 10k+ address in a sheet. the address is not in standard format or comma separated. can any one guide.

  7. I just needed a simple formula that allowed using wild cards and IF(Count worked perfectly.
    Thank you very much for providing this solution

  8. Hi there,

    My problem is the following:

    - I have a alphanumerical cell in column A with variable length from 3 digits to 20;
    - The alphanumerical code "12ZT" could be present at a fixed location in the string 1 to 4 (e.g. 12ZT5XY39012XY36789 or 12ZT5XY39012XY36789 or 12ZT5XY39012AAA or 12ZT5XY3 or 12ZT556789XY3);
    - If the alphanumerical code "12ZT" is present at a fixed location 1 to 4 in the string, the alphanumerical code "XY3" could be present also at a fixed location further in the string 6 to 8 but can also be repeated at a further length location in column A in a random position (e.g., 12345XY39012XY36789 or 12345XY39012AAA or 12345XY39012AXY3 or 12345XY39);

    I want to transform the value to another column in the following way:

    A B
    12ZT5XY39012XY36789 5909012XY36789 (i.e., character in the 5th position after code "12ZT", if "XY3" code exists in the 6 to 8th position all the characters from the 9th position for up to 6 characters on)
    12345XY39012AAA 12345X (i.e., no code "12ZT" exists so only up to 6 first characters)
    123 123 (i.e., no code "12ZT" exists so only up to 6 first characters)
    3210 3210 (i.e., no code "12ZT" exists so only up to 6 first characters)
    12345XY39012AXY3 12345X (i.e., no code "12ZT" exists so only up to 6 first characters, XY3 in whatever location is ignored)
    12345678XY32 123456 (i.e., no code "12ZT" exists so only up to 6 first characters, XY3 in whatever location is ignored)
    21345678XY32 213456 (i.e., no code "12ZT" exists so only up to 6 first characters, XY3 in whatever location is ignored)

    IF LEFT Function could be used inside COUNTIF it would be possible (IT IS NOT...), but I see no turnaround:

    =IF(LEFT($A1,4)="12ZT",IF(COUNTIF(LEFT($A1,4),"12ZT?XY3")),MID($A1,9,20),MID($A1,5;20)),LEFT($A1,6)

    However this doesn't work (the part of LEFT inside a COUNTIF). Any suggestions?

    Thanks in advance

    • Hi! Unfortunately, your explanations are not very clear. For example, the result is 5909012XY36789, 123 123 and 3210 3210. You can identify that "XY3" is in position 6 by using the SEARCH function. For example:

      =IFERROR(SEARCH("XY3",A1),0)=6

      Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional information to understand what you need.

    • Hi there - great article. I am looking for a way to drag this formula down an entire column to have the formula search for roughly 10,000 different partial matches in another column. Is there a way to do this? Or would I have to rewrite the formula 10,000 times based on the partial match I am looking for?

  9. Hello!

    I'm trying to devise a formula that will search for book ISBNs (eg 9780746033168) in cell A1, in another data set where some of the ISBNs have been shortened, removing the first 4 digits. So the matching value would actually be 746033168. I'd like the result to be either 'Not Found' if not found, or 'Partial Found' or similar.

    Thank you so much,
    Steph

  10. Hello,

    I have an excel sheet that has 6000 cities and need to put the state in a separate column. The state is in the original column, but I would like to do some macro research rather than gathering data on individual cities. How do I get the state to auto populate? For example: If my first 3 cells contain Miami, FL, Atlanta, GA and Las Angeles, CA...I would like a text return of FL, GA, CA respectively. What is the best function to have multiple rules in one text return fucntion?

    • Hi! You can extract the last 2 characters after a space or the last word from the text using these formulas:

      =RIGHT(A1,2)
      =TEXTAFTER(A1," ")
      =TRIM(RIGHT(SUBSTITUTE(A1, " ", REPT(" ", LEN(A1))), LEN(A1)))

      Look for the more examples formulas here: Get last word from string.

  11. May I request for help please? I am trying to match data with 2 criterias and return "valid" if true

    Criteria 1: Partial Text Match
    Criteria 2: Greater than 1

    Assuming the following columns:
    Column A:
    Row 1: Company A
    Row 2: Company B
    Row 3: Company C
    Row 4: Company D

    Column B:
    Row 1: $100
    Row 2: $0
    Row 3: $100
    Row 4: $-1

    Answer:
    Row 1: Valid
    Row 2: Invalid
    Row 3: Valid
    Row 4: Invalid

    Logic: Company A Match in Name with Greater than 1 Value, that is why the answer is Valid

    Thank you

    Hope someone can help

    • I recommend using INDEX & MATCH in conjunction. Here's the written out words of how to set up the formula.

      =INDEX(Column where ultimate answer for this cell can be found, MATCH(1,INDEX((cell where first criteria is located=Column where answer to first criteria is located)*(cell where second criteria is located=column where answer to second criteria is located),0,1),0))

      I suspect you've already solved your problem though.

  12. Great article. I was trying to use the "Excel IF AND formula with wildcards" piece of your article, but I need to limit the search to just a subset of the string in the cell.

    My example.
    Trying to search the cases where text string "|Working|Office|" exists but only between two other strings "|Week2|Thursday|Working|Teleworking|" and "|Week2|Friday|Working|Teleworking|"

    "Week1|Monday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week1|Tuesday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week1|Wednesday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week1|Thursday|Working|Teleworking|06:00 AM|07:30 AM|Working|Office|09:00 AM|04:00 PM|Week1|Friday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week2|Monday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week2|Tuesday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week2|Wednesday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM|Week2|Thursday|Working|Teleworking|06:00 AM|07:30 AM|Working|Office|09:00 AM|04:00 PM|Week2|Friday|Working|Teleworking|06:30 AM|03:00 PM"

    Basically, searching for:
    |Week2|Thursday|Working|Teleworking| WILDCARD |Working|Office| WILDCARD |Week2|Friday|Working|Teleworking|

    • Hi! Use the SEARCH function to find the position of your text strings in the text and compare them.

      =IFERROR(SEARCH("|Working|Office|",A2, SEARCH("|Week2|Thursday|Working|Teleworking|",A2)) < SEARCH("|Week2|Friday|Working|Teleworking|",A2),FALSE)

      • Elegant! Thank you!

  13. I am trying to come up with a formula that takes the value in column P and looks through the entire column L to see if the word in column P is contained in column L. The words are not exact matches. Column L could have the value of "23GAL0163, GASCHEM ARCTIC, 05/" and Column P could have the value of "GASCHEM ARCTIC". Because the word GASCHEM ARTIC is contained in "23GAL0163, GASCHEM ARCTIC, 05/", then I would need it to return the value that is in column P which is "GASCHEM ARCTIC".

    Please let me know if you need any further explanation. I really appreciate any and all help!

  14. Any chance anyone can help me with this? I'm trying to return a 1 for all cells that begin with White but don't include CW or BW. Is this even possible?

    =IF(OR(COUNTIF(E2, "White*"),COUNTIF(E2, "*CW*"),COUNTIF(E2,"*BW*")),1,0)

  15. I am trying to create a formula that will check for wildcards and confirm data matches. I have anywhere from 1 to 6 rows where the ID # is the same (Column D) and, in those same rows, I need to know if any of the codes in Column F match the information with wildcard (I put those in S and T 1 cells). If any do, I need it to return either "true" or "Up to Date"(preferred). Because I don't know how many rows for each ID, I tried using an and argument but I'm getting an error I cannot see and I have even written long form in an effort to find it

    =IF(($D2=$D8),(countifs(F8=$S$1&"*",F8=$T$1&"*"),"Up to Date",IF(($D2=$D7),(countifs(F7=$S$1&"*",F7=$T$1&"*"),"Up to Date",IF(($D2=$D6),(countifs(F6=$S$1&"*",F6=$T$1&"*"),"Up to Date",IF(($D2=$D5),(countifs(F5=$S$1&"*",F5=$T$1&"*"),"Up to date",IF(($D2=$D4),(countifs(F4=$S$1&"*",F4=$T$1&"*"),"Up to date",IF(($D2=$D3),(countifs(F3=$S$1&"*",F3=$T$1&"*"),"Up to date",IF(($D2=$D2),(countifs(F2=$S$1&"*",F2=$T$1&"*"),"Up to date",""))))))

    Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

    • Hi! I can't check your formula because I don't have your data. Please provide me with an example of the source data and the expected result.

      • My apologies - It didn't copy before

        Cell S1 - CMBI
        Cell T1 - CPBI

        COL D COL E COL F
        00012 Covid Vaccine Dose 1 - Moderna CMOD1
        00012 Covid Vaccine Dose 2 - Moderna CMOD2
        00012 Covid Vaccine Dose 3 - Moderna CMOD3
        00037 Covid Vaccine Dose 1 - Pfizer CPFR1
        00037 Covid Vaccine Dose 2 - Pfizer CPFR2
        00040 Covid Vaccine Dose 1 - Pfizer CPFR1
        00040 Covid Vaccine Dose 2 - Pfizer CPFR2
        00044 Covid Vaccine Dose 1 - Pfizer CPFR1
        00044 Covid Vaccine Dose 2 - Pfizer CPFR2
        00071 Covid Vaccine Dose 1 - Moderna CMOD1
        00071 Covid Vaccine Dose 2 - Moderna CMOD2
        00071 Covid Vaccine Dose 3 - Moderna CMOD3
        00071 Covid Vaccine Dose 4 - Moderna CMOD4
        00071 Covid Moderna Bivalent - Dose 5 CMBI5

        Only the last line should return a result "up to date", all others should return a blank cell

        Thank you again!

  16. Hi!
    Can you help me for
    =IF(ISNUMBER(SEARCH("III"; ".III.2023."; A2)); "3"; " ")
    the number of 3 is month, text "III" is code for month, I will create code "III, IV, and V" for month "3, 4, and 5"
    Can you help me please?
    i'm sorry if my english so bad :(

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